SotM Event #8 - Villain Beatdown Nemesis Edition!!!

We haven't had a game event in awhile, so here it is. The same rules as the first villain beatdown are in effect, with a couple of additions:

*After you create a hero team, you must use the same team against each of their nemses.

*If you win a game, we gain points equal to the villain's difficulty. Simply put your name in the column of the villain.

*If you win an advanced game, you get double the points. Put your name twice in that column.

*Losses still count as 1 point. Put you name in the loss column.

*Advance losses count as 2 points. Put your name twice in the loss column.

*If you can, post a session report here.

*If you don't have a nemesis for a hero, make one up with what you have. You still need to play a number of games equal to the number of heroes on the team.

*You only need to play 1 nemesis game for each hero.

*Iron Legacy only counts as 1 nemesis game. The game can be repeated for a second nemesis, but you still need to play a number of games equal to the number of heroes on the team.

*If a team wins every match against their nemeses, we get a bonus, and you can name your team. You can replay any losses.

All game can be submitted here.

You will have a full week for this event. The deadline is Monday, January 13, 2014, 11:59 PM CST.

Three notes:

1) I think you want this to be Event #8.

2) You meant "additions," not "editions."

3) Is it a safe assumption that once a team is assembled play against all nemeses THAT YOU OWN? (my emphasis). Elsewise rules out some people like Bunker or Absolute Zero from being able to participate at all.

With Legacy/Wraith/Omnitron-X/Nightmist you have 9 Nemesis matches.

@ jffdougan. Thanks for the corrects.

I was debating how many extra rules to put in, then I got quesitons about them.

Yes, only ones you own, although Bunker and AZ do have a nemesis.

You only have to play 1 nemesis match for each hero. Whether it is IL or a promo.

You need to play a number of games equal to the heroes on the team. You can play IL multiple times with the same team, but 1 game won't cover multiple heroes.

My general point stands... I happen to not own Shattered Timelines (although I got the RC/IR set with Christmas money). My initital plan was to try to run games using the teams as established, as best I can.

I know. If you own everything, there should be a nemesis for every hero. If you don’t, play what you can, then make up a nemesis game for the ones you don’t have.

There is not a nemesis for every hero. The Scholar, for example, has no nemesis as of yet.

Likewise, Wraith is overly blessed with nemeses, having a total of four if GloomSpite is counted separately and Ermine is also included, while Unity has only Iron Legacy.

Don't get me wrong, I love the idea of this event, I'm just thinking there are irregularities to work out.  Besides some heroes having more nemeses than others, some heroes also have more dangerous ones.  Omnitron-X can claim an easy win at the expense of his predecessor (especially using Self-Sabotage), while a team of Mr. Fixer, Tachyon and Ra would have extremely slim chances of defeating two 4s and one of the toughest 3s.

Does Advanced status influence things at all in this challenge?

True I should learn to stay away from absolutes. Oh…well. it doesn't change anything though. All the rules are still there.

EDIT: Also, no game against La Capitan, Kismet, or Miss Information, even if you own everything.

I just edited in a question which needs to not be missed, so I'll repeat it - does Advanced status matter in this challenge?

Advanced status nets double points (win or lose)

I will edit the first post, and add this in.

That was, sort of, the point. In this challenge, it's muich harder to create the perfect team against some villains. Even if you do, adding in Legacy will give you a very easy match. Also, 3 hero games, which are usually harder, are quicker to get through, since you only have 3 matches. Since you don't have as much control, you still get a point for losing.

eyebrow

@ Pydro:  Do we use the form in the old thread or have you made a new one?

I wasn't saying Wraith was screwed because she'd have to play four games; I was saying she had an unfair advantage because you can choose among four different possible matches for her, while with Unity you HAVE to use IL, and he's not a terribly good matchup for her.

Also, 3 hero games, which are usually harder, are quicker to get through, since you only have 3 matches.

The visionary in particular makes a gimme, since her "nemesis" is a match that's actively easier with fewer heroes.

Ok. I didn’t understand what you meant with Wrath. You are right, not everything works perfectly.

Proposal: the original villain beat down offered bonuses for complete sets, IIRC. Bonuses for sweeping victories with the established teams of the Freedom 4/5/6, prime Wardens, or Dark Watch?

I have no problem with that. I won’t be able to edit the spreadsheet until tonight, but if someone else wants to, please go ahead.

EDIT: Thinking about it sone more. Except for playtesters, nobody has the Dark Watch. Nobody has the full Prime Wardens, and not sure if people want to play UP numerous times for F5 or F6.

So how about this. If you win every game for your hero team, you get a bonus, and you can name your team.

First game for Omnitron-X/The Wraith/MisterFixer/Expatriette ends in defeat to Advanced Cosmitron.

The game went pretty well, until Fixer pulled Salvage yard, and drunk on power (and Omni wanting his components back) we decided to Singularity then Salvage yard.  12 Damage to Omni was awesome, the Mars Base playing Dust and Omni playing 2 assault Drones and EPE the next turn was not.  Patience was a virtue we lacked this game, and it cost us.

Rematch was a victory:  Meteor Storm early let the team get set up, stomping Omni down to 42 HP before he played Singularity, then Mars Base played Red dust, we destroy Red Dust in time for another Singularity, followed of course by Red Dust.

That left Omni dead, Expat and Wraith at half health and Fixer nearly full.  A few turns of Driving mantis and stealth based survival later Omni played 5 drones (fortunately three were repair) and an EPE.

With Wraith ar 3hp, Fixer at 9 and Expat at 6hp things looked hopeless.  Omni let Expat draw a card for his incap and she got unload.  We look at the numbers.  Wraith Barrages for 10, Fixer hits Omni for 3, and Expat hits for 17 (including an assault rifle+incendiary shot at Fixer) to destroy the 28HP Cosmitron.

Fortunately that ended the game, because he had enough fire power to end us on his turn if Omni had his old rule in this version.

I really want to have the team names, so you can replay any losses.

(It didn't end up mattering for me, Pydro, but it occurs to me to ask - after assembling your team, are you allowed to switch versions of the heroes involved between rounds?  Like, could you play normal Legacy, Wraith and Bunker for one game, then Young Legacy and Freedom Six Wraith and Bunker, and then Rook City Wraith and the WW2 heroes?  Or must you play the same version of each hero all the way through?)

Played the first of my three matches - Wraith, Tachyon and Ra vs. their nemeses, in the opposite of that order.  One of my earliest matches featured these three heroes (in the other order), and has always stuck in my mind, so after confirming that this would be a worthwhile choice, I decided this would be my team.  I'm starting off with the Ennead fight, as they're among my favorite villains and I have fought them only three times before.  And fittingly enough, the battle is Ra and two women, one "bright" and the other  "dark", vs. the Ennead's resident sun god Atum and his two ladyfriends, Isis and Nephthys, the goddesses of Birth and Death.  Even the HP totals are close, with the Ennead having one more HP among them than the heroes - Atum and Ra at 30, Isis and Wraith at 26, Tacky at 27 and Neph at 28.  For setting, I decided to go with Rook City, not because I especially wanted the extra difficulty but simply because I was due to revisit it, and figured it would worsen the battle less against the Ennead than it would against either Matriarch or GloomSpite.

So, the battle started off with an Elemental Storm, burning each hero for 3, with Isis zapping Ra for 2 and Nephtys throwing an extra fire damage at everyone.  That put the hero team down 14 HP with one card, but Throwing Knives and Accelerated Assault retaliated for 6 (Tachy chaining through HUD Goggles and reluctantly dumping a Synaptic), then Ra summoned his Staff to heal 3 and threw it at Isis for 4, just to teach her a lesson (and also because he had another Summon Staff in hand).  Rook City started off annoying with a Scum and Villainy, which played Sun's Fury for 1 damage to each hero, with no triggers.  The Desert's Wrath then destroyed S&V, dealing 2 more damage to all heroes (counting Nephtys) and an extra 2 to Tachyon, but preventing the 2 that S&V was set to deal at the end of round 2.  Wraith put down a Stun Bolt, but didn't use it just yet, because Tachy had Hypersonic Assault; after Ra re-summoned his staff, he roasted Isis down to 15, while being only down 3 himself.  An Ambitious Racketeer stuck his nose into things, which strikes me as less than wise of him; since it doesn't specify which hero targets it attacks, I assume I get to choose, so I had him shoot at Ra and Wraith, leaving Tachy more able to keep Pushing the Limits.  More Desert Wrath happened, disposing of the Idiot Racketeer but unable to deal any damage; Wraith put down Smoke Bombs before Throwing more Knives, Tachy kept up the Hypersonic pressure and threw an extremely premature Lightspeed Barrage for just 5 damage, before using Research Grant to refill her hand to the same 3 cards she was allowed to play (those numbers becoming 2 without PtL).  Ra put down an Inferno, leaving Isis at 2, then a Falling Statue started to fall onto Tachyon's head, but got confused by the smoke and instead hit Ra (for the full 3 since it's irreducible).  That was the only thing the Smoke Bombs would ever accomplish before Mass Overheating got them (you'd think that would just make them smoke harder, but whatevs), and Wraith also threw out her Knives since she was about to lose her third target, and it gave her an excuse to switch to Stun Bolts now that Hypersonics were done.  She gave Nephthys a Throat Jab before Stunning Atum, then Tachy played a Quick Insight, discarded two Nimble Strikes, Sucker Punched Isis to death (revealing an incap ability which can be summarized as "Oooh, Tachy like!"), and threw a much more impressive Lightspeed Barrage at Atum for 10 damage, ensuring that Nephthys would become the highest-HP Ennie - this matters because Atum frequently plays extra Sun's Wraths or Mass Overheatings, both of which have the highest-HP Ennie dealing their damage, so they wouldn't work this next turn due to Throat Jab.  Lacking anything better to do, Ra played Blazing Tornado so he could fry Atum for 4 instead of 3.  Another Scum and Villainy chose a reasonably good time to happen, playing The Grave Beckons...in itself, this did nothing, but it triggered Ankh abilities for the first time, so Neph healed herself and Atum for 1, and Atum played a Sun card, which was another Mass Overheating, and this time Tachy and Ra disposed of their solitary Equipments so that Wraith could keep Stun Bolt, even though she had a spare in hand.  About this time I realized I had completely forgotten to apply Nemesis bonuses in either direction, so I figured I'd see whether I could manage to recalculate from the top:

Round 1:  Elemental Storm [W-23, T-24, R-24], Isis (instead hitting T who falls to 22), Nephthys [W-22, T-21, R-22]...the team is actually down 18 HP with one card.  Throwing Knives [I-25, A-29, N-27], Accelerated Assault [I-24, A-28, N-26], Staff of Ra played for healing and thrown at Isis for net 5 damage [R-25, I-19].  Scum and Villainy plays Sun's Fury [W-21, T-20, R-23].

Round 2:  The Desert's Wrath [W-20, T-19, R-21], Isis (now hitting Wraith who falls to 18), Nephthys [W-17, T-18, R-19].  Throwing Knives [I-18, A-27, N-25], Hypersonic Assault [I-17, A-26, N-24], Staff of Ra played for healing and Isis Pyred for net 4 [R-22, I-13] - he's 5 lower than I thought, and Isis is only 2 lower.  Ambitious Racketeer still doesn't shoot Tachy [W-15, R-20].

Round 3:  Throwing Knives [I-12, A-25, N-23], Tachy Pushes the Limits and falls to 16, Hypersonic Assault [I-11, A-24, N-22], Lightspeed Barrages Isis down to 6, then Ra plays Inferno with Isis as the primary target, leaving her at 1 [A-21, N-19].  Falling Statue now initially plans to hit on Wraith, but still mistakes Ra for a woman through the smoke, leaving him at 17.

Round 4:  Throat Jab Nephthys to leave her at 17, then Stun Bolt on Atum who ends up at 20.  Tachy PtLs to 14.  I can't see how Isis could be only 1 HP lower now than before when Ra hit her twice with nemesis, but I'll assume it somehow worked so that Tachy still played Sucker Punch to kill her (else she'd have had to discard Sucker Punch and play Nimble Strike on one of the two survivors, and she'd be up a card).  Lightspeed Barrage cuts Atum in half, then Ra burns off half of that, leaving him at 5.  Scum and Villainy plays The Grave Beckons which triggers Nepthys's healing [A-6, N-18].

Okay, so I calculate Atum as having lost 4 more HP than before, and 2 for Nephthys, while shuffling things around for the heroes leaves Ra down 5, Wraith down 2, and Tachy unchanged.  Resuming normal play with the start of round 5, Ancient Magicks destroys PtL and Blazing Tornado, then Atum zaps Wraith and Tachy for 1 each [W-14, T-13]; Nepthys responds by coughing and wheezing and rubbing her bruised throat, which feels okay a moment later ("as your doctor, I advise you not to breathe fire this turn").  Wraith Impromptu-Invents a Utility Belt, plays her second Stun Bolt, and reduces Neph to 16 HP while double-Stunning her.  Tachy has drawn her third Lightspeed Barrage but doesn't want to play it until the last minute, so she uses Quick Insight to put out a pair of Synaptics.  Finally an Enviro card has remained in play past the end of the villain turn, so Ra considers playing Scorched Earth for net 2 damage to each of the two surviving Ennies, but I really want to kill Atum, so I use Inferno for net 4 to him and 2 to Neph (leaving her at 14), then overkills him with Pyre.  I notice that I forgot to do Isis's incap ability, so I belatedly take care of it now; Scum & Villainy self-destructs and causes Neph to deal 2-2 damage to each hero, with a net effect of 1 damage to Ra (leaving him at 16)...I forget how you pick which villain is supposed to deal the damage on S&V, but of course in this case it doens't matter.  Then a Statue falls, and Neph is tied with Wraith for second-highest HP, so she takes the hit and is left at 11.  Round 6 begins and I do it right this time; dead Isis mills an Impromptu Invention and Ra's other two Summon Staffs, then dead Atum reloads the villain deck with those lovely, harmless Desert Wraths while making it less likely that a Taste of Immortality or Rise to Power will prolong the game.  Sun's Fury is the play, and again all Neph can do is hit Ra for 1.  Wraith plunks down a Micro Targeting Computer to double-stun Neph down to 5, and then Tachy turns her into a grease spot on the pavement with exactly three times as much damage as required.  So much for the Power of the Ennead.

That was awesome, if a bit error-laden (as is typical for me; at least this time, the most consequential error was possible to correct, so the only real glitch was the remote possibility that Isis could have milled all of Wraith's Utility Belts or MCTs if I had done it right).  I'll be moving on shortly to the next match, though I don't know if I want to do all three of them today.

Beginning game two of this series, versus the Matriarch in the Realm of Discord (presumably someone decided her poetry was Gloomy enough for his taste and invited her over, and the heroes aren't "fighting her" so much as "rescuing her against her will").  Decided to shift the order of my heroes around, putting Tachy first and Wraith last.  Matty and her Mask have 79 HP between them, so the heroes have even less work to do now than when wiping out 84 HP worth of Ennead, but of course she's likely to do a much better job of fighting back; I've only beaten the Matriarch once, and it was with five heroes, but we'll see how it goes.

Matty starts out by summoning three Fowl, Huginn, and two more Fowl plus a Horrid Cacophony, so the heroes are down just 1 HP so far.  Tachy puts down HUD Goggles, then uses Accelerated Assault to clear the field, triggering Matty five times; Ra takes all but one of the piddling 1-HP hits.  Ra summons his Staff to regain 3 of those HP, then Pyres the Mask down to 5, and draws another Staff.  Wraith did not draw an Impromptu Invention to fetch MCT+Razor, so she has to settle for a Stun Bolt which turns off Matty's damage, but then some damned inconvenient Ethereal Bonds come out and deactivate Ra.  Matty's Mask heals all but 1 of the 3 damage Tachy and Wraith dealt her, then Huginn trashes the Staff of Ra.  One Fowl shows up, then the first five Darken the Sky, and then six more appear, and the other Horrid Cacophony fortunately again finds no Ongoings to destroy.  Tachy plays Quick Insight, hoping to find an Assault, and does indeed turn up one of the Hypersonic variety, so that giant cloud of birds won't need to be killed one at a time just yet.  (I'm assuming that when Matty either deals no damage or has it reduced to 0, you are not required to destroy your Ongoings or Equipment, but in this case it doesn't matter since Ra is tied for highest HP and has nothing in play.)  Ra draws 2, then Wraith takes out the Bonds with a Grappling Hook before shooting the Mask for 1.  Realm of Discard brings out Explosive Bubbles, hitting every other target in play except the Mask for 2.  Matty heals 2, Tachy feeds Huginn her Goggles, and Carrion Fields comes out, followed by two new birds and a Darken the Sky.  Now there's a bit of trouble, because nothing's negating the damage from either Matty or Fields; Ra can kill the birds with Scorched Earth, but it'll hurt a LOT.  Still, not killing the birds will hurt similarly.  Tachy draws two and gets another Hypersonic Assault, then Ra brings the pain, as indicated below:

HP # - - Damage instance applied

Ta Ra Wr

23 23 21 Beginning HP

23 22 21 Crows #1 destroyed; Matty hits Ra.

23 21 20 Fields hit Ra and Wraith.

21 21 20 Rooks #1 destroyed; Matty hits Tachy!

20 20 20 Fields hit Tachy and Ra.

20 20 19 Ravens #1 destroyed; Matty hits Wraith.

19 19 19 Fields hit Tachy and Ra.

19 19 18 Ravens #2 destroyed; Matty hits Wraith.

18 18 18 Fields hit Tachy and Ra.

18 18 17 Rooks #2 destroyed; Matty hits Wraith.

17 17 17 Fields hit Tachy and Ra.

16 16 16 Crows #2 destroyed; Matty hits Wraith, Fields hit Tachy and Ra.

15 15 15 Jackdaws #1 destroyed; Matty hits Wraith, Fields hit Tachy and Ra.

14 14 14 Vultures #1 destroyed; Matty hits Wraith, Fields hit Tachy and Ra.

13 13 13 Vultures #2 destroyed; Matty hits Wraith, Fields hit Tachy and Ra.

12 12 12 Jackdaws #2 destroyed; Matty hits Wraith, Fields hit Tachy and Ra.

11 11 11 Vultures #3 destroyed; Matty hits Wraith, Fields hit Tachy and Ra.

10 10 10 Ravens #3 destroyed; Matty hits Wraith, Fields hit Tachy and Ra.

09 09 09 Crows #3 destroyed; Matty hits Wraith, Fields hit Tachy and Ra.

08 08 08 Jackdaws #3 destroyed; Matty hits Wraith, Fields hit Tachy and Ra.

OUCH.  Would it really have hurt comparably to have let all the Birds have their way with us?  Let's check.

HP # - - Damage instance applied

Ta Ra Wr

23 23 21 Beginning HP

22 23 20 Crows #1 peck Wraith and one other hero, we'll pick Tacky.

22 21 20 Rooks #1 double-peck Ra.

21 20 20 Ravens #1 peck Tacky and Ra.

20 19 20 Ravens #2 peck Tacky and Ra.

18 19 20 Rooks #2 double-peck a high-HP hero, we'll pick Tacky.

17 18 20 Crows #2 peck Tacky and Ra.

16 17 19 Jackdaws #1 peck everyone.

14 17 19 Vultures #1 double-peck poor Tacky.

12 17 19 Vultures #2 double-peck poor Tacky.

11 16 18 Jackdaws #2 peck everyone.

09 16 18 Vultures #3 double-peck poor Tacky.

09 15 17 Ravens #3 peck Ra and Wraith.

08 14 16 Jackdaws #3 peck everyone.

Okay, I stand corrected; it's clearly preferable to leave the birds alone.  So Ra will instead play Imbued Fire, then Pyre the bubbles down to 2.  Plopping down Throwing Knives (which are actually +1 Flaming Knives of Throwing thanks to Ra; never play a Rogue without a Wizard in the party), Wraith takes out the Bubbles, the Mask, AND Huginn.  Ghostly Images appear; Tachy gets a free Nimble Strike upside her idiot sister's head for 2, but Ra reveals a Solar Flare and loses it along with 2 HP, and Wraith is similarly dinged by a Mega Computer.  (Ra was hurt by a phantom sun, and Wraith by the shade of ultimate information technology, so clearly this whole event is a metaphor for arrogant over-belief in one's areas of superiority, and Tachyon escapes such harm because she "goes with the flow" in a very Zen-Buddhist way, so the Realm rewards her with extra activity while punishing the others for over-attachment to material goods and long-term planning.)  Now that HP totals have changed, of course, I have to recalculate the whole round of damage for the start of round 4, and this time try to put Tachy in the middle for her safety, while letting stealthy Wraith take the low HP spot.

HP # - - Damage instance applied

Ta Ra Wr

23 21 19 Beginning HP

23 20 18 Crows #1 peck Wraith and Ra.

21 20 18 Rooks #1 double-peck Tacky.

20 19 18 Ravens #1 peck Tacky and Ra.

19 18 18 Ravens #2 peck Tacky and Ra.

17 18 18 Rooks #2 double-peck Tacky.

16 18 17 Crows #2 peck Tacky and one other hero, we'll pick Wraith.

15 17 16 Jackdaws #1 peck everyone.

13 17 16 Vultures #1 double-peck poor Tacky.

11 17 16 Vultures #2 double-peck poor Tacky.

10 16 15 Jackdaws #2 peck everyone.

08 16 15 Vultures #3 double-peck poor Tacky.

08 15 14 Ravens #3 peck Ra and Wraith.

07 14 13 Jackdaws #3 peck everyone.

Well that didn't quite work out as I hoped; this time there was never an opportunity to pick whether or not Tachy got hit, so she still got torn apart by those Vultures.  Another Carrion Fields comes out, and that's it for Matty's fourth turn.  Tachy Hypersonics, then Ra plays his Staff and Pyres Lilian for 4.  Wraith busts out a Utility Belt, dealing 2 damage to each of Lilian and the two Domains, then 2 more to the Matriarch herself, and semi-redundantly Stunning her while she's Hypersonicked; it'll matter only during Ra's turn, but that made a big difference in the above hypothetical where he played Scorched Earth.  (At this point I have Matty at 53 HP, and hope I haven't miscounted.)  She then draws an inconveniently timed MCT, now that she isn't dealing projectile damage.  Realm of Discord finally brings out a Distortion, the Positive Energy Field.  In round 5, Matty plays Muninn, who brings back Huginn; now Matty takes -2 damage, as do both Cohorts, but fortunately she's out of Fowl for the moment.  It won't be a long moment; there are only two cards left in Matty's deck and one of them is a Darken the Sky, while the other is the last Fowl, so one way or another the Mask is coming back along with all those Fowl next turn...I'm assuming that if DtS comes first, the return of the Mask won't immediately play another card, so there's a half chance of that one Fowl staying put until the next turn, but it hardly matters either way.  Anyway, Muninn's arrival triggers PEF, so Tachy and Wraith regain 1 HP, as does the first Domain, leaving both of those at 13 and the two non-Tacky heroes at 14.  With 6 Bursts in trash and the bonus from Imbued Fire, Tachy can reduce Muninn to 2 HP and allow Ra to Wrathful Gaze him to death, but without her MCT, Wraith isn't going to be able to finish off Huginn the turn after, so he'll bring Muninn right back...the only thing this would accomplish would be to save one O/E from being destroyed by Huginn.  Actually, PEP would heal Muninn to 3 HP when Wrathful Gaze was played, so this really won't work; there's nothing for it but to let disaster strike.  So what Tacky actually does is play Quick Insight, healing herself and pinging both Cohorts; she draws a HUD Goggles and a second Lightspeed Barrage, discarding Sucker Punch and Supersonic Response; she then draws Pushing the Limits.  Ra brings out his Gaze, healing Tacky once more; with damage reduction protecting everything else, he takes his frustrations out on a Carrion Fields for 4 damage, knowing that he could only get 2 damage through to Lilian and that the Cohorts would just heal.  (Ra is not really a Positive Energy kind of person, much as the Mulhorandi Clerics of D&D's Forgotten Realms might disagree.)  Wraith uses a Grappling Hook to get rid of the PEP, which is too slow to save Tachyon and is posing a serious problem with Huginn and Muninn; she holds off on the Throwing Knives for now and Stealths while Stunning Matty for no damage.

And then, Time Flies comes out, so the Grappling Hook was wasted, but such is life; the only other reasonable play would have been MCT, which isn't useful now.  But this is disastrous, because it means round 6 begins with a Darkened Sky, which means the Fowl don't just come out, they instantly do their damage.  I've never been clear on whether you're allowed to control the order that simultaneously-raised cards go back into play, but I'm choosing to do so here, because I don't want the Vultures to be on top as they happen to be in the trash (I did not scoop the destroyed Fowl up in scrupulous order anyway); letting them fire last means a fair chance of Tachyon not instantly dying.  I'll put one the Rooks first, who'll chomp Wraith to get rid of her Stealth; all the Ravens will come next, chewing Ra and Wraith down to 11, then another Rook will drop Ra to 9, and all three Jackdaws will reduce him and Tachyon both to 6 while Wraith remains at 9.  Then all three Vultures will kill Ra, and finally the Crows will hit Tachy for 3, no longer possessing a second target, leaving Wraith still largely intact.  I think that's about as well as I can hope to conduct this.  Oh, before all that happens, Huginn's destruction happens, targeting two of Ra's three cards before they all leave the game.  And to add insult to injury, the Mask comes back, gives Lillian 2 hp back, and then is in play during the play phase.  Matty has a 5-card trash which is reshuffled and played from after the last Rook comes into play; there's another Darken the Sky (possibly even the same one), then a Horrid Cacophony, and meanwhile Matty has flipped (luckily she didn't regain HP from the Rooks).  The Cacophony knocks Tachy down to 1 and Wraith to 8, then the Turn from Hell finally ends; Tachy isn't holding a Hypersonic, so she dares not kill any Birds for fear of the Domains firing.  She chains through PTL and HUD Goggles just because, then throws two Lightspeeds for 16 net damage to her sister.  Ra gives Wraith a Power, but she doesn't have her MCT which would have come online already, so she's dealing just 1 damage with her Throwing Knives, which target both Domains and the Mask...actually there's not much point, so she'll just go Stealth.  On her turn, she plays the MCT and Sutures herself, then Stuns Lilian for net 1 and throws knives for another, hitting the Mask and one Domain for 3 each (one of them seems to have a 5 instead of the 10 I expected, and I'm not sure whether that was a mistake, but for now I'll leave it and hit that one, putting it and the Mask down to 6 each).

Negative Energy Field replaces Time Flies, and this time I'll play it out instead of just instantly assuming that everyone dies, as I did in my first game against Matty, not having realized that Carrion Fields and the Ravens and Crows never hurt the last hero standing.  At start of round 7, Huginn destroys Tacky's two cards, and I realize that Muninn increased Horrid Cacophony's damage by 2, so Tachy never got her last turn.  But I'll play it as it lies, and see how bad it gets... Building of Rooks removes Stealth, then the Ravens hit Wraith for 3 (because Tacky's alive, otherwise they'd have been harmless), more Rooks deal 2, Jackdaws deal 3, Vultures 1 deals 2, and Vultures 2 kills Wraith.  If not for my mistake with leaving Tacky alive, it would have taken three Vultures to finish Wraith off.

Bleah, I thought with both Tacky and Wraith I would actually have a chance of beating Matty.  I'll debate a rematch later, but in a different environment...that Time Flies just isn't worth gambling on again.

Sure, you can change versions of heroes between battles.

Decided I'm not in a rematching mood right now, so before I consider taking on Matty again, I'll deal with the last of the three matches.  It has to be Spite (or Iron Legacy), but to make things interesting, I'm using the Agent of Gloom version for the first time...this marks my first entirely original villain fight since the forum game against Cosmic Omnitron that I jumped into the middle of.  If you discount that one, the last time I learned a new villain was when I finally took on Iron Legs, having saved him for last; that was my 34th game, on the 4th of October (my very first game was in July or early August, but I didn't start getting serious about the game until the latter half of that month), and this one will be my 88th.

It's not clear from the wording whether you're supposed to reveal Spite's drugs in a random order or if you can choose; I'm assuming the latter, and have set them up in what I think will be the easiest-to-handle order.  The Environment, not that it matters much when my first Drug will be Mynd-Phyre, is Silver Gulch, and I've put Ra last and Wraith first this time (I now wish I'd had Ra first in the Ennead game so that they'd all have had the nemesis hero in position 1, but oh well).  So, turn 1:  Good Samaritan begins in play for the Safe House, Mynd-Phyre is revealed, and Spite plays a Lab Raid, dealing 2 melee to each hero (+1 to Wraith), then he deals 3 infernal to Ra.  Wraith gets started right out the gate, Impromptu Inventing a Razor Ordinance and playing Micro-Targeting Computer, dealing 6 net damage to her nemesis.  And she draws another Impromptu Invention!  Tachy doesn't have a terribly good hand, so she just draws 2; Ra has two copies of Solar Flare as his only desirable cards (Flesh of the Sun God is useless and Imbued Fire would hurt Wraith as much as it would help him and Tachyon), so he lays one down, Pyres spite for 4, and then lets the Flare die at end of turn.  The heroes try to rescue Good Samaritan, but Spite goes On the Prowl and kills him, regaining 3 HP and fetching a new victim...another Good Samaritan!  So they try again, and this time it works, as they find an Innocent Bystander.  Silver Gulch plays a Water Trough.

Round 2.  Demon's Kiss flips face-up, then Collateral Damage is played, popping the Bystander.  Spite heals for 3, hits Tachy for 3 Infernal, blows up the Water Trough to deal 1 psychic to everyone (+1 to Wraith), then deals 1 infernal to everyone (+1 to Wraith).  Tired of surprises from the villain deck already (I'm not, but she is), Wraith draws a Utility Belt, then invents an IR Eyepiece.  Playing the Belt, she deals 6 damage to Spite, then messes with his deck, sending Lost Child to the bottom and keeping a Bystander, drawing Throwing Knives and another Utility Belt.  Tacky chains HUD Goggles into Nimble Strike, dealing a mere 1 damage to Spite and drawing an HSA; she Rapid Recons a Quick Insight and keeps it.  Ra plays the other Flare, fries Spite for 4 with Pyre, and then takes 4 himself to keep the Flare, drawing Blazing Tornado.  Cyrus Hayes makes a very short (much like himself) appearance on the battlefield, shooting Wraith and Ra for 3 each.

Round 3.  Spite flips up Compound XI (I maybe should have saved that one for later, I wasn't really thinking of how much it was going to hurt Wraith), then plays the Bystander.  Tachy takes 3 infernal, Cyrus Hayes turns into psychic damage, and Demon's Kiss fires.  Wraith discards the duplicate Belt to save the Bystander, then plays some Smoke Bombs, which are quite a good deal for her in this situation; she fires Razor Ordnance for 6, takes what would be 2+1 damage but redirects it to Tachy where it becomes 1, mills her five cards, uses IREP to pick Good Samaritan over Lab Raid, draws Stun Bolt, redirects another damage to Tachy, and mills five more before drawing a second IREP.  Tachy Quick Insights, discarding two entirely useless Sucker Punches, then HSAs Spite to put a stop to this damage business.  Though Compound Xi prevents Rapid Recon from doing much, she does it anyway so as to get Bursts in trash, auto-discarding the Reconned card - and milling two of her Lightspeed Barrages, argh.  She draws Blinding Speed and is done.  Ra plays Living Conflagration for 4 damage to Spite, then Pyres him for 4 more and lets the Solar Flare die; he draws the even more entirely useless Wrathful Gaze.  Silver Gulch plays Lost in the Past, discarding Tyler Hayes (yay!) and Sherrif Pratt (boo!).

Round 4.  Compound Omicron arrives; Good Samaritan comes out, and Spite cries bitter manly tears as all three of his damage instances fail, though he does destroy Lost in the Past.  Wraith uses a Grappling Hook on Collateral Damage, draws Throwing Knives, goes Stealth since her Razor is useless against Omicron, mills 5 without taking damage, and IREPs to reveal...Collateral Damage and Forced Entry!  Argh!  Selecting the lesser evil, even though it guarantees the doom of the Samaritan, she draws Throat Jab, mills 5 (including her last Impromptu), and draws her last Utility Belt.  HSA expires as Tacky starts her turn, but she plays another one, after wasting a Nimble Strike to get through Omicron, and draws Lightning Reflexes.  She mills 6, draws her deck's only remaining Fleet of Foot, and ends her turn.  Unable to force any damage past Omicron, Ra draws 2.  Silver Gulch pulls Sustain the Portal; Wraith's Stealth absorbs the hit aimed at her, the other two heroes both drop to the same 12 HP as her, and the Portal knocks Spite down to 57.

Tragedy!  Round 5 is when Spite gets his last Drug, the one I wanted to avoid, Compound Upsilon.  Collateral Damage destroys Good Samaritan, and Spite goes up to 60 HP, before sobbing some more.  Since it now seems as though flipping Spite would be pointless at best, Wraith forgets about her IREP and plays Stun Bolt, firing it to use up the Omicron shield (which I just realized is much less formidable than I thought at H=3) and get through for 3, mill her last 4 cards, hit for 6 with Razor Ordnance, and be unable to mill anything more (as I understand it, you only reshuffle when forced to draw cards, not discard them from the top of the deck).  Reshuffling, she draws a Trust Fund.  Tachy plays Fleet of Foot, drawing another Blinding Speed while granting Ra another Flesh of the Sun God, and Wraith another Trust Fund...worst Everybody-Gets-One ever.  She plays Accelerated Assault to use up Omicron, then Lightning Reflexes to play another Accssault and a Blinding Speed on Collateral Damage, however much that matters.  Now that there's actual damage involved - 3 points total, reduced by 1 from Stun Bolt and another from Smoke Bombs, but still something - Tachy opts not to use Rapid Recon and just draws - her only remaining Lightspeed Barrage!  Ra plays a Staff, getting out of the HP tie for a bit, and Pyres Spite for net 2 damage, putting him to 49, taking 2 actual damage and milling two more Staffs, then drawing Summon Staff, which isn't quite yet useless.  Silver Gulch plays a Prickly Cactus.

Round 6 arrives.  Compound Upsilon sends Living Conflagration back to Ra's hand, which can be its good deed for the year.  Spite plays a Lab Raid, dealing 2 net damage to each hero, but the damage which targets Wraith redirects to Ra, becoming 1 damage and dropping him back into the 12-HP tie, then the damage to Ra redirects to Tachyon to drop her to 11, and she redirects a point right back at Ra...now Wraith is the highest HP, but won't be for too long.  Mynd-Phyre blows up Prickly Cactus, dealing 1+1-1 damage to each hero; Tachyon intercepts the first packet, Smoke Bombing it out for -1 but delivering it to Wraith, where it goes back up, so Wraith falls to 11.  She then Smokes her point of damage to Ra, where it falls to 0, and he passes his on to Tachyon (who probably recalls passing around something else which involved smoke during her college days, but that's neither here nor there).  Then Demon's Kiss fires, but again Wraith can redirect the damage away from herself and it becomes 0 against anyone else, so Spite's turn ends.  Wraith gives Spite a Throat Jab, getting 2 net damage through; safe from Compound Xi damage, she Razors him for 6, then omits the Stun Bolt so she can IREP one more time, setting up a Potential Sidekick for later, and drawing redundant Smoke Bombs followed by a not-so-redundant extra Stun Bolt.  Tachyon actually took a point of damage from Spite this time, just one, but that's enough to allow a Supersonic Response; 3 net damage gets through and Spite is at 40.  Opting to wait one more turn to maximize the Barrage, she plays Nimble Strike for 1 more damage, draws a card, and does the mill-6 routine before drawing again...unfortunately the mill claims her last HSA.  Ra replays Living Conflagration for net 2 damage to Spite, mills past two completely useless Summon Staffs, and draws another Conflagration.  Silver Gulch coughs up an Explosives Wagon, whose interaction with Mynd-Phyre is a little unclear, but I'll assume it doesn't actually stay in play through the moment at which Mynd-Phyre deals damage.  (Not that it matters thanks to Throat Jab.)

Time for a fairly bloody Round 7, with Living Conflagration again bounced by Upsilon.  Potential Sidekick arrives, then Mynd-Phyre blows up the Explosives, dealing net 5 damage to Spite (he's now down to 28), targets Ra with 3 fire damage which becomes 2 to Wraith [9], then takes the actual 3 projectile damage since he's no longer lowest HP [8].  Wraith then has 1 more HP than Ra, so she takes the full 3 fire damage [6], becoming very thoroughly lowest HP, and passes on 2 projectile damage to Tachyon [9].  Tachy takes 3 fire damage, enters a tie with Wraith [6], and passes on 2 projectile damage which brings Ra back down into the tie as well.  Spite climbs the walls for the rest of his turn, then Wraith plays a second Stun Bolt and lets him have both barrels.  The first one reduces his damage back to its printed amount from the Upsilon bonus, excluding nemesis, so Wraith would take 3 net damage [3], then the second Stun Bolt literally saves her life, leaving her at 1 HP...but of course with Smoke Bombs, the first instance is redirected (let's say to Ra, who takes only 2 and is left at 4), and then the second benefits from double-Stunning so only 2 net damage affects Wraith (bringing her also to 4), all while 7 net damage powers through.  It's clear she can't survive much longer, and the loss of her Smoke Bombs will likely doom the others, but not much more is required; Spite is now at 21 HP.  Tachyon has only 4 cards left in her deck and the same number in her hand, but half of these cards are among the 22 bursts in her deck it seems, so she deals only 18 damage with her Barrage, Upsilon preventing one point and leaving Spite at 4 HP.  On a good day, Ra is up for a challenge like that, but at the moment, he can't quite finish Spite off!  Living Conflagration deals 2 damage reduced by 1, then Pyre reduces the villain to 1 HP.  Tachy omitted to use her power on her turn, but Ra takes 1 net damage from Upsilon because of his, redirecting it to Tachyon and reducing it to 0 (those Smoke Bombs really are handy); he mills five cards including two Flame Blasts, then draws a Wrathful Gaze.  And then Temporal Event comes off Silver Gulch, digging up the other Sustain the Portal, which blasts Spite first and thus indeed ends the game before it can continue to an 8th round.

Well, that was something else; I'm now feeling up to trying Matriarch again, to see if I can claim victory for my team.  It's a bit of a shame that I wasted my first experience with GloomSpite on a solo game, but I thoroughly enjoyed it; it's a nicely different experience from the original, with Victim cards actually mattering quite significantly in the early game, and a nice race to beat him ASAP instead of having to slog through his ridiculous amounts of healing and try to get him flipped.

EDIT - Looks like I forgot to have Spite deal his 3 Infernal damage at the end of round 6; that would have hit Wraith when she was at 12 HP, being 4 net damage to leave her at 8, then Mind-Phyre and Demon's Kiss would have effectively damaged Tachy and Ra while ignoring Wraith, dropping the other two to 10 HP.  So the Explosive Wagon's 3 fire damage to Wraith would have become 2 to one of the others [8], then the projectile damage would also go down to 8 and hit still another hero, leaving them all tied at 8.  One of Tachy or Ra would then take 3 damage [5], then redirect 2 damage to another hero [7]; if that wasn't Wraith, they would then get hit for the full 3 fire due to being in the middle [4], then be able to redirect to the 7'er [5].  Thusly, instead of all three being at 6, this extra 3-damage instance would leave one of Tachy or Ra up 1 HP while the other 2 were down 1.  After that, Wraith would fire both Stun Bolts, with the Upsilon damage for the first redirecting to the high-HP hero, bringing him into the tie for 5, and the second damage reducing to 1 and hitting one of the non-Wraiths [4].  Assuming Ra was hit, since Tachy didn't plan to use a power, no more damage occurs until Ra's turn, when his Pyre results in 2+1-2=1 damage, so he also falls to 4, and Wraith actually ends the game as the high-HP hero at 5, despite having fallen to 1 HP in a hypothetical scenario where Smoke Bombs had abruptly disappered and Stun Bolt #2 was the only thing that kept her from going down.

You do reshuffle when discarding from the top of the deck.

Okay, here goes with the Matriarch rematch...not wanting to lose yet again (she already manages to outstrip Iron Legacy and Chairman for defeats I've suffered to date, and even exceeds The Dreamer despite my having lost a rematch against her on this very forum), I'm setting this battle in my "happy place", the final Wasteland, which in seven games to date has only incapacitated a single hero and never lost a game.  I consider it "safe", and in particular it threatens to utterly eviscerate Lillian's deck, so this will be my game to lose, and I plan on bringing my A-game.  I won't even make it Advanced, despite the fact that it's entirely possible for a lucky group of heroes to claim a double-points victory at Matty's expense without ever seeing her Cohorts; I intend to take no chances.  Having unintentionally duplicated my hero order between games 1 and 3, I'm tempted to set it the same here as yet another security blanket, but I really prefer to mix things up, so for the first time I will have Tacky in 3rd and Ra in 1st.

Round 1, and Matty somewhat cooperates with my intention to defeat her by not playing any Fowl; she squanders a Darken the Sky, then puts out Huginn (who I'm glad I didn't make indestructible, if he was going to go showing up on turn 1).  Usually my policy when playing solo is to draw each hero's hand at the start of their turn, and play upstream players as having no knowledge of what their followers will do, as a sort of token concession to the conceit that this game is meant to be played with other people (who presumably aren't telepathically networked, and who opt not to table-talk too much).  But as I said, I want to win this game, so I'm breaking that unwritten (except just now) rule.  Seeing that Wraith has Impromptu Invention and that Tachy has duplicate HUD Goggles she can feed to Huginn on round 2, Ra plays his Staff on turn 1, wasting its healing, and Pyres the Mask for 3.  Wraith invents an MTC, plays Razor Ordnance, and reduces the Mask to 1; Tachy finishes it off with a Hypersonic Assault, dealing 2 to Lilian and hoping she'll pull Horrid Cacophony next turn to no effect whatsoever.  The Final Wasteland plays exactly the card I hoped it would, Unforgiving Wasteland; this is definitely not going to be Lilian's game, since she has no way of removing that.  (On the downside, the fact that it just showed up on its own means that I can't use it as an excuse to abuse Ancient Library and Con's Bunker, which I was really looking forward to doing.)

Round 2.  HUD Goggles are destroyed, then Matty plays another Darken the Sky, so the Mask is back, but still no Fowl.  Ra plays Inferno, hitting Lilian for 4 and her two feathered friends (one more animate than the other...probably) for 2 each, then Pyres the Mask for 3.  He draws another Staff, then Wraith (who is beginning to wish she was the Rook City version) tosses out a random IREP before killing the Mask with Ordnance.  Chaining through HUD Goggles again, Tacky plays Quick Insight with only one other card in hand, which she intends to keep (Lightspeed Barrage), so she essentially mills 2 and draws 1, keeping a Pushing the Limits and putting two Bursts into her trash, which could have been used to kill respectively one Fowl or all of them, if any existed.  She Rapid Recons a Fleet of Foot and keeps it, then the Environment produces an NJ Devil, who deals 2 fire damage to Huginn and 2 to the Wraith.

Round 3, and Lilian is bawling like a baby; she finally finds some Jackdaws, some Rooks, some more Rooks, and a Horrid Cacophony (like I said, bawling).  There are no Ongoings to destroy, and she deals a pathetic 1 damage (+1 in Tacky's case) to everything she doesn't like, including that awful Jersey Devil which is making eyes at her pet Huginn (who just "borrowed" the Staff of Ra).  It's obvious enough to the heroes what the protocol is here; restraining the urge to nuke everything with Scorched Earth, Ra lays down another Staff, regaining the 1 HP he lost, and then Pyres a Building of Rooks, losing the 1 HP again to Lilian's first act of retaliation.  Wraith Impromptus a Utility Belt, then plays a Throwing Knives, using them to deal 3 to Lilian instead of 5 from the Ordnance, so she can also kill the other Building of Rooks, causing Ra to take another hit.  She then uses IREP, finding another Horrid Cacophony and burying some Ravens.  Tacky chains Fleet of Foot into another Fleet of Foot into Pushing the Limits into Nimble Strike for 2 on Matty; she Rapid Recons past an Accssault, then draws triplicates of HUD Goggles (boo) and Fleet of Foot (yay!).  And then the Final Wasteland devours Huginn and the Jackdaws (the name of Lilian's high school band, ironically enough), leaving no trace of their bones, after first spitting out a Horrid Skunk Ape which then takes a bite out of everything including the Devil.

Lillian is utterly doomed by this fourth round; she Cacophonies for a mere 1 damage to everything, +1 to Tachyon, and destroys the only Ongoing we've seen all game, Pushing the Limits (probably shouldn't have played that, but it did draw me the Fleet of Foot so I guess it works out).  Now that the way is clear for Ongoings, Ra drops a Solar Flare, Pyres Matty for 5, and takes 4 to keep the Flare going.  Dropping a just-because Stun Bolt, Wraith slices and dices the Matriarch for 8 while hitting both Cryptids, now that they have served their purpose and are threatening to become a liability.  The Skunk Ape survives with 1 HP, but only until Tacky chains Fleet of Foot into a Sonic Vortex, dealing 4 to Lilian, and then Lightspeed Barrages for another 10.  Flipping past Blinding Speed, she draws Synaptic Interruption.  The Wasteland puts out a Rat Beast; Tacky and Ra are tied at 22, so the former volunteers to take the bite ("but I've never even OWNED a lab rat, I swear!"), ensuring she won't be high HP when Matty next raises a fuss.

Round 5 is slightly less of an indignity for Lilian, as she flips out an Unkindness of Ravens and then a Carrion Fields to avenge it; ignoring these petty threats, Ra continues to roast the pasty-complexioned young Goth with a lifetime of shunned sunlight, playing Living Conflagration for 5 damage and then Pyring for 5 more, before again taking 4 to keep Solar Flare.  Though it's a bit premature, Wraith Impromptu Invents a random Equipment and then throws it and all her other stuff at Lilian with Inventory Barrage, dealing 14 damage.  Going Stealth just because, she passes the turn to Tacky, who doesn't have a Lightspeed Barrage with which to put her little sis out of her misery, and so just draws two cards (both of them Supersonic Responses with which she could have not quite finished Matty off).  The Wasteland brings out another Devil, Rat Beast takes another bite out of Tacky, and then the Devil deals 2 damage to Matty and devours the Ravens.

Matty is so pathetic, she can't even manage a Darken the Sky for her 6th and final turn, though she does play Vultures and Jackdaws.  Muninn then shows up, caws plaintively for his partner, and is left alone with 2 more HP than his mistress.  Ra is left with no less than five different ways of barbecuing the 5-HP Matriarch (Scorched Earth, Pyre, Flame Spike+Pyre, Imbued Fire+Pyre, or Summon Staff to try and draw-play some other damage card before Pyring if necessary, all with Conflagration and a Staff-throw as alternate options for Pyre...sadly I can't manage to Wrathful Gaze her to death, since that card isn't yet in play).  My objective of steamrolling Matty has been completed; let that be a lesson to spoiled time-traveling teenagers with godly-powerful mystical artifacts the world over.

*****

So, having won a match against each Nemesis, Pydro says I'm allowed to name my team, which I did when first selecting them for this challenge.  Back in about my sixth SOTM game ever, I played these three basic heroes against what I'd already decided was one of my three favorite villains, Citizen Dawn, even before playing her.  The whole concept of a female, sun-themed Magneto-clone with Communist subtext, the Light is Not Good trope which I've always loved (I rather identify with Matriarch in regard to her preference for darkened skies), the flat-out euphonious quality of the name...I was pretty much in love with this character from the first time I saw her, and these were the heroes who I selected to take her down.

The result is still one of the five or so games I can recall in significant detail off the top of my head, without having to consult my records, even after more than three months...Dawn opened on Blinding Blast and soon had Citizens Sweat and Tears in play, rendered immortal by Return with the Dawn which I'd opted to leave in play, hoping unsuccessfully to get Drawn To the Flame running.  By the end of the game, it was literally impossible for Tachyon to do anything on her turn - she had no cards in hand, could not possibly keep even two drawn cards past the villain turn, and thus all she could do was flip two cards from the top of her deck into the trash each turn, whether with Rapid Recon or just by drawing two.  Ra was better off only in having the ability to Pyre for 2 each turn.  But Wraith (the first character I ever played, here being used for only the second or third time) had a full spread of Equipment and could deal 8 damage to Dawn each turn; Ra had done a fair amount of damage to Dawn and Tachy had probably Lightspeeded a few times, so after a few turns of the other heroes being entirely neutered, Wraith finished pincushioning the villainess.  Remember, I hadn't played before, nor was I in the habit of peeking at the backsides of villains I had yet to play (eventually I got impatient and broke that rule, but still); I had no idea what a bullet I'd dodged by killing Dawn before she could flip (a feat I believe I have never yet managed to duplicate in five other matches against her), because I didn't know that her flipside was invulnerable and would prolong the game for several miserable turns while Citizens showed up and had to be left alive - not too many turns in an H=3 non-advanced game, but still.

So as I said, that game was pretty much branded onto my brain, and so when it came time to select a group of heroes for this challenge, after finding that this trio would work for my purposes, I remembered when I had gathered them before, and their name revealed itself to me:  The Dawnchasers.  Besides commemorating their first victory, the name is nicely symbolic: Wraith is "of" the night, Ra is "of" the day, and Tachy can outrun the transition from one to the other, thus "chasing" the dawn as it sweeps around the globe.  It's not a terribly deep or innovative name, but I like it, and looking at the 8 or so hours I've invested in these four solo matches (mostly the game reports rather than the games themselves, although one makes the other easier to keep track of), I'd say I've earned it.

Dear Pydro, something is not quite right with the input sheet...it shows a total of 20 points earned so far, but counting them up manually I see 23 have been achieved (6 for beating Cosmotron Advanced, 4 for my Matriarch victory, 4 for another Advanced game against a 2, 3 each for my GloomSpite and Ennead wins, and 3 for two losses, one of them advanced).

Still, whether it's 20 or 23, it's not much of a turnout.  I for one think this is a great challenge, so my guess is that people are still tuckered out from the holidays.  I have two days of gaming yet to come, so I may run this gauntlet again, but perhaps you might consider extending the deadline to give other people (who have something resembling actual lives) more of a chance to get caught up?

I think someone fixed the problems before I could. GREAT!

I added in the Team Bonus (10 points1).

I, also, added a second sheet which lists the teams (I didn't want to clutter up the main sheet).

Sure, I can change the deadline. I will add another week.

I have tried to work my way through the known Prime Wardens. Advanced Ambuscade went down in a rapid avalanche; I've lost twice running to normal Apostate (but do not have those games entered). Both times he's gotten a Relic Spirit on turn 1 and a Profane Summons on turn 2, which makes it difficult to make much headway.

A friend of mine, who knew I loved this game a lot more than she did, gave me her copies of Rook City Wraith and Young Legacy for christmas. Whoot! So naturally I wanted to throw those two on a team... and since I had two female promo characters, I decided to go with a Jam For The Promo Ladies, and toss in Dark Watch Expatriette, Dark Watch Nightmist, and because I could see I would have some tough villains ahead with that lineup (especially my habit of playing almost exclusively on Advanced when by myself), an almost guilt-free Team Leader Tachyon.

Decided to get the easiest match out of the way: Advanced Baron Blade in Wagner Mars Base! (I'm a sucker for continuity.) The meteor storms helped the heroes far more than Blade: they blocked his damage, Young Legacy set up some support card, and then Team Leader Tachyon blasted them with a blinding speed so the rest of the team could go to town.

The funniest thing about this match was how regularly Expatriette and Wraith were sending damage Nightmist's way. Assault Rifle? Shoot Baron Blade... and since there were no other targets, Nightmist, who redirects! Throwing Knives? Same deal! Team Leader Tachyon helped keep Nightmist high on cards, but honestly it was Attunement and Enlightenment that did most of the work there. Didn't get to see much sleuthing on Wraith's part, but I'm not going to complain about round one impromptuing the razor/microtargeting combo, and round two impromptuing a utility belt and playing a throwing knives to be dealing 10 a round after Inspiring Presence.

Regardless... the Baron did get perilously close to winning on his first side, with 14 cards in the trash at the start of one of his turns (blame a "Consider The Price Of Victory!" for that), but after that it was pretty much a brutal stompfest. Better luck next time, Blade!

But the next fights won't be so easy! I've got Citizen Dawn, Agent Of Gloom Spite, Skinwalker Gloomweaver, and Iron Legacy all to go! (All Advanced, of course.)

(Too late it occurs to me if I had just done Young Legacy, RC Wraith, and DW Nightmist, I could have done all promo hero versus all promo villain matches. Ah well, I'm looking forward to the Dawn and IL fights anyway.)

I let Spiff's Randomizer pick a 4-hero team for me.  I got ----

Bunker, Ra, Chrono-Ranger, and the Argent Adept.  It looked like a fair mix so off I went!

(Match environments were selected randomly)

Match 1 -  Team vs Akashu'rhuta at The Ruins of Atlantis

Team starts chipping away while the environment gets annoying by pushing out a Kraken right off.  9 damage to the villain in Round 1, and 11 more in Round 2 while equipment, instruments, etc. are deployed.  The Kraken gets taken out by a Temporal Grenade and the villain also wastes a few one-shots.  A limb is finally deployed - and destroyed in Round 3.  The Argent Adept keeps taking damage along the way.

By Round 5 the villain is down 88 points and a few limbs have come out and been destroyed.  Ra is wondering where his staff is, Jim is looking for his hat, and the Adept knows there is a healing tune somewhere in the deck.

Akasshu deploys *six* limbs in Round 6.  The Argent Adept gets wrapped in brambles, brambles, and more brambles, and then Rock Slides start falling on him and the other heroes.  Grenades fly, things are drawn to the flame, and Chrono-Ranger places more bounties as they attempt to prevent this sudden onslaught.  The Adept is kept alive through Round 7 and then suddenly finished off by the Environment Deck.  But the heroes have the lead and are able to wear the villain down by Round 9, though the result is a fairly close run.

Match 2 - Plague Rat at The Tomb of Anubis

Bunker rolls out the Grenade Launcher right off for the second match in a row.  Ra once again has lost his staff.  Chrono-Ranger gets in a couple of shots at the RAT and also gets a bounty out right off.  The Adept starts rolling out music and prepping instruments.  Ra gets infected in Round 2 (a decision made in the idea that he could get Imbued by Fire out and Flesh of the Sun God and thus get immune to infected attacks.)  The Nest gets taken out and most attacks get concentrated on Plague Rat.  Challenge of Fire starts to scorch things.  Chrono-Ranger gets a second +1 damage bounty on the RAT, and then the eventually deadly cycle got going; e.g. Chrono-Ranger playing Terrible Tech Strike (in turn or out of turn) and then getting it back due to Adept maneuvers.  Everyone gets infected in Round 4, but Plague Rat runs out of hit points as Chrono-Ranger hammers him with TTS for the 3rd time in two rounds.  (Chrono-Ranger had drawn two, and gotten one back onto his draw pile due to the Adept.)

Match 3 - The Ennead at Rook City  (Note: 1st time I've played this villain or this environment)

(Initial villain set is Geb, Shu, Nephtwys, and Tefnut)

First five rounds are nickel and dime attacks back and forth, some healing, Isis deploying in Round 3, and Bunker blocking the environment deck every so often.  Heroes are rolling out equipment and powering up.  At the start of Round 6 health values were as follows:

Geb: 19 of 32; Shu 9 of 24; Neph: 26 of 28; Tef 26 of 29; Isis 18 of 26

Bunker: 23; Ra 21; CR: 23; AA: 17

But the heroes were at this point better prepared to start dishing out damage.  Round 6 was the major move:

Bunker: Internal Combustion one-shot - Grenade Launcher = 20 total damage

Ra: Scorched Earth one-shot for 3 damage to each villain; Drawn To the Flame for another 2 damage

Chrono-Ranger plinked at things and the Argent Adept did minor group healing or allowed players to draw cards.

Round 7 was more of the same as the general strategy was to wear the Ennead down in general and try to take them out at once.  In Round 8 four of the five were incapacitated at once and the fifth one left with fewer than 5 HP.  The villains were then finished off in Round 9.  (Drawn To the Flame was being using sort of like Grevious Hailstorm - it was good for 2 HP damage to all five villains every turn.  And the Adept has the right cards out to allow Ra to trigger during his turn as well.)

Match 4 coming up... vs Iron Legacy!

I'll probably try this initially with regular Bunker, but expect that using Bunker: Engine of War would be more effective due to the additional on-going removal ability.

Match 4 - AA/CR/BK/RA vs Iron Legacy

4a - At the Block

Iron Legacy deploys with Galvanized x2, Superhuman Redirection, and Armored Fortitude

The beatdown commences.  The Environment provides a Prison Riot, and follows up with a Lock Down.  In Round 3 Argent Adept and Chrono-Ranger are incapacitated.  Ra is incapacitated in Round 5, and Bunker goes down in Round 7.  Not very effective combat, they got IL under 20 HP once, but he was back up around 30 by the end.

REMATCH

4b - At Silver Gulch, 1883 -- Bunker EOW substituting for Standard Bunker (go go mode cards!)

Iron Legacy deploys Galvinized, Superhuman Redirection, Armored Fortitude, and Vigilance

IL plays Demoralizing Presence in Round 1 and starts pounding on the heroes.  Chrono-Ranger destroys Vigilance using a Temporal Grenade.  Bunker destroys Demoralizing Presence using Locomotion.  Argent Adept gets Bunker another power use and he then uses Locomotion to destroy Armored Fortitude.  Ra Pyres IL for a few points of damage. 

Environment plays an Explosives Wagon -- definitely looking like a speed game.

Round 2 begins with a Legacy one-shot and then his standard front-side pounding of heroes.  Chrono-Ranger plinks and plays a bounty.  Bunker starts firing the Flak-Cannon.  Argent Adept plays Vernal Sonata to get on-going removal cards back onto the top of decks.  Ra plays Drawn To the Flame and starts using IL's on-goings to fuel attack strength.

Environment plays a second Explosives Wagon.

Round 3 has IL pounding on heroes further with a one-shot and playing another Demoralizing Presence as well.  He also has flipped and is now starting to heal up.  CR can't inflict damage (one shot effect) and thus has little to do.  Bunker plays some armor and shoots at an Explosives Wagon due to the Superhuman Redirect that is out there*.  AA sacrifices an instrument to destroy Superhuman Redirection.  Ra gets the Staff of Ra into play and then cuts loose with Drawn to the Flame again -- and everything starts blowing up as the two Explosive Wagons go up as well.  Iron Legacy and the heroes both get blasted with AA and CR being incapacitated.

Round 4 starts with Ra getting incapacitated and IL recovering more points.  It's now down to him and Bunker.  Incap heroes give him additional Flak Gun shots and Ra destroys the remaining Demoralizing Presence on-going card.

IL just takes out Bunker in Round 5 due to Nemesis bonus.  (And worked it out that if Bunker had survived the attacks he would have taken out IL due to all the incap heroes allowing him additional Flak Gun shots doing 3 HP damage to IL per pop.  Oh well.

* - Hero order might have been a key difference here.  If AA had gone before Bunker and taken out the on-going Bunker could have put a 6 HP Flak Gun shot into IL instead.  Which would have changed Ra's effects for less damage due to the explosives wagons not exploding for another round.  And possibly Ra lasting an extra round?  Possibly.

Not going to keep replaying this at this point.  Maybe roll out a three hero random team and see what they can do.

Promo Ladies versus advanced Citzen Dawn in Insula Primalis!

GOOD LORD I hadn't fought Citizen Dawn in a while and forgot what a pain she could be.

Fortunately, a well-timed Volcanic Eruption coupled with Young Legacy's Danger Sense and Darkwatch Nightmist's Amulet Of The Elder Gods managed to clean up the citzens AND, after another round or two, Dawn herself, although the latter score was helped by all the "Thwokks" YL's fallen teammates could inspire her to play (Team Leader Tachyon getting off 28 damage from two Light Speed Barrages before the volcano killed her didn't hurt).

I got in solo games last night that need to get added -- victory against Akash'Bhuta and loss against the Ennead with the known Prime Wardens. Both on normal mode

Edit: All games to date were played with Ra rather than Tempest, because I had one of my notes wrong someplace. Will still go log two losses to Apostate, victory over A'B, and loss to Ennead shortly.

Don't forget to take on Ambuscade.  Sounds like you could use an easy win.

I enjoyed my participation in this challenge enough that I'm running it again, with a five-hero team this time!  It will be Haka, Mr. Fixer (usually his Dark Watch version), Chrono-Ranger, Legacy and Tempest, and at least a couple of the games will be Advanced (Plague Rat and Ambuscade for sure, possibly Warlord Voss, definitely not the Chairman or Mad Bomber Blade, who I'll be trying for the first time).  Fair warning, there will be NO rematches with this set...also, I have intentionally set up the order to be different every time (ie no two heroes play the same positions twice), but prejudicially assigning certain slots to Fixer and Legacy in particular.  I'll start with the easy warm-up match, playing in Wagner Mars Base against a guy who likes it so much there, he decided to stay.

Adding to the pathetic ease of this matchup in the first place (Ambuscade being a weak villain, Wagner Mars being a somewhat gentle environment, and the hero team being five members including Legacy), I've positioned Legacy in 2nd place, with Fixer right after him...if Fixer gets a Riveting Crane Strike in his opening hand, this game could be exceedingly short, and would only technically qualify as Advanced.  For Ambuscade's starting Devices, I drew a Custom Hand-Cannon, the Personal Cloaking Device, some slightly-redundant-with-the-former Reactive Plating, and an Automated Turret whose twin then appeared.  Him being invisible right off the bat was annoying, as was him zapping Tempest for 4, then shooting Legacy for 2 damage, but Haka appreciated the fact that the Automated Turrets don't count as part of Ambuscade while they were gunning him down to Legacy's own HP of 30.  CR put a slightly ironic "Kill on Sight" on the PCD, then shot it twice; he then drew the Masadah, ensuring that once he laid down at least one other Bounty, Amby's side A text would cease to matter much to him.  Legacy's Back-Fist Strike took the PCD down to 3, so Fixer didn't bother to hit it and instead used a Hoist Chain on Automated Turret; tossing down a Grevious Hail Storm, Tempest finished off the Cloak, giving CR his three cards.  Haka threw down a Mere and overkilled the Hand-Cannon, rather than finishing off the Hoist-crippled Turret.  Wagner Mars took pity on 'Cade and gave him some Villainous Weaponry, however long that would last with Tempest around.

His hidey-hole compromised, Ambuscade tossed out a Sonic Mine to make Tempest miserable (especially given that he's right before Haka), but a handy No Executions from CR prevented this from being an issue, after Amby had pot-shotted Legacy for 5, and the turrets had nailed Haka for 3 and then CR for 2, and Jim had jauntily cocked his Hat.  Legs gave the stronger Turret, the Reactive Plating and the Villainous Weaponry all a Flying Smash; Fixer Meditated to get out Driving Mantis Style, then Struck the Plating, and Tempest risked laying down an Electrical Storm before firing Hail Storm again, wiping out all non-hero targets and hitting Amby for 3.  Haka did a little Battle-dance, throwing out his entire hand except for one Savage Mana and dealing a total of 8 damage to his nemesis.  The Environment sprung an Oxygen Leak (which somehow doesn't affect Tempest's ability to create Squalls and Storms of various varieties), and the heroes opted to leave it out since it would hurt Ambuscade, Fixer could redirect the damage for at least the next turn or two, and it would help Haka not be highest-HP when his archenemy went looking for things to shoot.

Ambuscade brought out the big gun, his Explosive Launcher, but at this point the heroes hardly cared.  However, at said selfsame point, I did notice that I had been forgetting to apply the damage reduction of Ambuscade Advanced, so it turns out this was a normal game.  (Sorry, I did say no rematches, that applies in both directions.)  Between Displaced Armory for Compounded Bow and a Terrible Tech-Strike, a still-Galvanized CR did a total of 11 damage to Ambuscade, then drew Hunter and Hunted; if Amby didn't get a Vanish, he'd unquestionably die pretty quickly after CR's next turn.  Out of better plays, Legacy played a Surge of Strength despite being largely past his damage-dealing days; Fixer had no cards worth playing and just brought Amby down to 26.  Tempest threw the rocket launcher Into the Stratosphere, probably in frustration at being 1 damage short of killing it, bringing his total damage to Ambuscade up to 8 that turn; Haka threw Dominion into play and Mere'd Ambuscade down to 13, which became 11 as the lack of oxygen - his own and Fixer's alike - caught up with him.  Mars chained out another Villainous Weaponry but whatever.

Amby had the satisfaction of bringing his enemies down to 18, 17, 16, 14 and 17 HP, then Hunter & Hunted + The Whole Gang let CR deal 6 damage, then Legacy stopped cheerleading and actually punched the French madman himself, letting Fixer finish him off with a Tire Iron.  I have got to stop forgetting that damage reduction when I try to fight villains on Advanced; this was my sixth victory over Ambuscade (he's the only villain who can't claim as much as a tie against me as yet), and it was the first time I've beaten him quite that quickly, but that was just because I was prompt in getting rid of his Cloak and lucky enough to not have it return...if I'd been tracking the number of non-Cloak turns, it's likely it would work out to a similar number in almost every case.

Is the launcher a valid subject for Into the Stratosphere?  I think it has to be an indestructible card.

It can’t be an indestructible card, but it can be anything else.

Ah. My misunderstanding then. 

I've got all the cards out, so why not go again?  This time, I'm scratching off my second-to-last never-played nemesis match (excluding villains who don't have a nemesis yet) with Plague Rat, who is definitely going to be Advanced...no excuses!  I'm switching to Darkwatch Fixer, and rearranging the order to put him in position 1 as is most optimal, with Legacy in third so that his Galvanize bonuses will split the difference, making things more interesting with Infection going around.  Tempest is between them, and CR is last (later matches will not always follow this pattern of the nemesis being fifth).  And for a highly fitting Environment, I'm getting the beloathed-(that's-a-word-now)-by-me Time Cataclysm scratched off my list, on the theory that this is CR intentionally chasing his nemesis across time.

PR started out spectacularly mean, with a Ravage for 4 against all the heroes but Haka, Infecting everyone but Legacy (since he alone lacks a damage-dealing power, though I thought about picking Fixer since his power isn't always usable) and following up with his built-in 3 damage to everyone including Haka.  With everyone Infected then self-damaging for 3 at their start of turn, they'd all be down 10 HP before they could do anything, apart from the one most able to spare such HP.  Declining to play a card, Fixer punched for 5, drawing a potentially-useful-but-not-right-now Driving Mantis; with the bonus partially benefitting them, the heroes were in no real hurry to waste attacks on the Plague Locus, although Tempest of course could not help hitting it with Squall.  The Alien Aquanaut figured there was hardly a better first card to play under these circumstances than Vicious Cyclone.  Having Motivational Charge in his opening hand (a first for me, I think), Legacy decided this would be a good game to try never using Galvanize at all; he alone was attacking at his base damage amounts, but granting his allies (and himself) a few valuable HP in the process.  Unable to Punish the Weak with Plague Locus around, Haka did an Elbow Smash for 5 and then Crushed for 4 more, and then CR finally got his chance to chain Eye on the Prize into Sudden Contract for By Any Means, dealing 14 damage that turn including his Quick Shot.  (I forgot to draw my card from Eye on the Prize, and the second card I drew that turn after I remembered was another one.)  Finally, Time Cataclysm acted, Marsquaking for exactly what the heroes needed, more damage (which was face value except for the +1 to Plague Rat from BAM).

That was a heck of a first round!  All targets together lost a grand total of 95 HP!  What would PR do for an encore?  Tooth and Claw, hitting poor 15-HP Tempest for 5, Haka for 7, and playing the fifth Infection.  None of the heroes had found a disposable card for Fixer, so he threw down a Jack Handle for a single-use thwack for 5 against both the Rat and his Nest, which would then die to Squall, de-escalating the battle thereafter.  Falling to 4 HP at the start of his turn, Tempest had originally been planning to spend this turn drawing two cards so that he could throw Vicious Cyclone three cards for two turns in a row (which might have won, ja, if not for five sicks that seven ate, nein).  But since it seemed likely he was add another entry to his long record of incapacitations (I consider him notoriously the "worth more dead than alive" hero, mostly because of two games against Iron Legacy which almost turned into victories because of his incredible incap abilities), so he saved one Lightning Slash to play outright for the final +2 damage instance prior to his Squall.  That totalled 17 more damage, and he volunteered his Cyclone to die to the Marsquake.  Legacy had never gotten to deal +2 damage before the Plague Locus died, and that was making him so angry, so he slipped on his Legacy Ring and Galvanized his Motivational Charge, despite the fact that the damage bonus to Infections would cancel out the healing he'd only offered once previously.  Now able to Punish the Weak, Haka Crushed the Rat for 5...and I abruptly noticed that I'd been forgetting BAM's bonus this entire round.  So Rat was down another 1 from Fixer, 5 from Tempest (three Cyclones, Lightning Slash, and Squall), 1 from Legacy and 1 from Tempest, leaving him at just 11 HP.  CR then accounted for BAM in his calculations as he played Eye on the Prize into Terrible Tech-Strike, killing the Rat before the second half of the Tech-Strike arrived.

That, ladies and gentlemen, was a two-round kill.  Certainly my personal best; have any of you done better?

EDIT:  I continue to have trouble with combat math...I calculated Tempest's second-hand damage as 17 before applying BAM, then 22, but then in an archival record, I forgot that Galvanize wasn't being used, and somehow came up with a total of 29, from which I then subtracted 4 somehow.  Regardless of the exact number, though, it was a lot.  If the Rat hadn't died in round 2 after all, he almost certainly could have been killed while leaving at least Haka alive to do the job with incap abilities.  But I'm fairly sure I legitimately did get a two-round kill, and so I have yet to suffer an incapacitation with this five-man band.

Doing a 3-hero nemesis team - once again suggested by the Spiff Randomizer and using random environments.

Team Promo (for now)  - Redeemer Fanatic, Absolute Zero - Elemental Wrath, and Young Legacy.

Decided to do the big fight right off -- verses Iron Legacy!

Match 1 - Iron Legacy at the Time Cataclysm

Iron Legacy, irritated at facing an opponent daring enough to be imitating his dead daughter comes out with Superhuman Redirection, Demoralizing Presence, and Armored Fortitude ready to go.

Round 1 - Vigilance played by IL and he starts pounding on heroes.  Fanatic heals and draws a few cards - hoping to get an End of Days.  No luck, but Wrathful Retribution has turned up.  Absolute Zero draws two in order to look for modules or Fueled Freeze.  Young Legacy takes a hit in order to play Heroic Interception.  This will allow card plays next turn without worrying about Vigilance dealing damage to the other heroes.  The environment puts Atlantean Throne Room into play - a benefit to the heroes!

Round 2 - Final Evolution played by IL and he can just hurt Young Legacy.  Fanatic plays Brutal Censure (mainly for the card draw), Redeems, and draws - no luck for End of Days.  Absolute Zero plays and destroys Glacial Structure - more cards.  Young Legacy plays Bolster Allies and takes damage.  Everyone draws for Atlantean Throne Room -- and Fanatic gets End of Days!  Environment plays Surprise Shopping Trip - which the Throne Room nicely counters.

Round 3 - IL rolls out a second Armored Fortitude and hits the heroes some more, and they hit themselves as well.  Fanatic plays End of Days and  everyone else draws cards.  End of Days triggers and blows away IL's on-going array and the two environment cards.  The Environment appropriately now sends a Tumbleweed rolling across the desolate landscape.  GAME ON.

Round 4 - IL plays a one-shot preventing Young Legacy and Absolute Zero from inflicting damage.  He also hits everyone again.  Fanatic plays Divine Focus (and discards a card on every turn of the round - including the environment turn.)  AZ plays an Impale.  Young Legacy plays Take Down and takes some more damage.  The Environment plays Oppressive Smog.  (Legacy down six points at this point.)

Round 5 - No card for IL.  He hits the heroes and Young Legacy is down to 4 HP.  Fanatic is still discarding cards for Divine Focus - and pays the 4 HP to keep it going.  And now she plays Wrathful Retribution for 17 damage to IL.  She makes another discard for AZ's turn, Impale hits, and then AZ finishes off IL with an Elemental Wrath strike.

So a lead-off win verses a normally difficult opponent.

That squeaking sound you hear was Team Promo pulling out a win due to late round dumb luck.

Match 2 - Apostate at Insula Primalis

Round 1 fairly boring with Apostate and Fanatic trading sword strokes after she deploys Absolution.  The environment provides an Obsidian Field as a dark background for the bloodletting.  Apostate played Apocalypse right off so no heroes put out non-relic ongoing or equipment cards.

Round 2 has Apostate playing Fallen Angel and inflicting more damage.  Young Legacy plays Fortitude and continues Atomic Glare attacks on Condemnation.  Fanatic attacks Apostate with Absolution and one-shot cards to take advantage of the nemesis bonus.  Absolute Zero plays a Cold Snap and also uses Elemental Wrath on Apostate.  An enraged T-Rex emerges from the trees and bites down on Fanatic for 6 HP. (ouch)

Round 3 starts and Apostate plays Profane Summons - the Gauntlet and Orb enter play.  Young Legacy uses Flying Smash and all the damage redirects to the Orb - destroying it.  Fanatic does a Final Dive on Condemnation and crashes it into the Gauntlet - destroying Condemnation and leaving the Gauntlet with 1 HP.  The Cold Snap destroys the Gauntlet and Absolute Zero played a Focused Apecture and hits Apostate with Elemental Wrath.  He also discards to get rid of the Obsidian Field.  The bushes attack with Toxic damage (Primordial Plant Life) and the T-Rex gnaws on Absolute Zero.

Round 4 brings out another relic as the Periapt of Woe enters play and Apostate inflicts a little more damage.  Young Legacy plays Heroic Interception and Atomic Glares Apostate.  Fanatic plays Divine Sacrifice and hits Apostate with Absolution.  The Environment triggers a Volcanic Eruption.  The T-Rex is confused about who to bite and misses everyone.

Round 5 villain play is a Imp Pilferer - it destroys the soon-to-be-destroyed-anyhow Heroic Interception.  The heroes all pound on Apostate with a plan to run his hit points down and only having to destroy one relic (with 3 HP) left and Fanatic has another Final Dive card available.  Young Legacy skips her turn to plug the volcano - and a vent opens leaving a River of Lava running all about.  Equipment is lost.

Round 6 starts poorly.  Another Profane Summons - a Gauntlet and Effigy enter play, with the last bringing out another relic!  Young Legacy damages the Runes of Malediction and Fanatic uses Final Dive to crash the Runes into another relic for further damage.  Absolute Zero and Fanatic finish off a few relics and manage to hit Apostate once as well.  The environment brings out another T-Rex, and since the new Rex has the most HP, the first Rex bites Apostate!  With him wounded further the new 2nd high HP is the first Rex - and new Rex therefore bites first Rex. 

HP at end of Round 6:  Apostate 4; Relic (Gauntlet): 1; Young Legacy: 4; Fanatic: 2; Absolute Zero: 5; Rex A: 7; Rex B: 15 (Obsidian field in Play)

Round 7 (play-by-play)

Villain Draw: Demonic Pugilist;  Apostate hits AZ for 2+2 and Gauntlet hits AZ for 1 twice.  AZ incap. Pugilist hits Young Legacy for 3.

Young Legacy: Hit Gauntlet for 4.  Gauntlet destroyed.  NO RELICS IN PLAY

Fanatic plays Absolution - Hits Apostate for 4 (Absolution for 3 + 1(nemesis) + 1(obsidian field) - 1 (Demonic Pugilist).  Apostate at 0 HP and defeated!

AZ stops environment deck from playing card.  T-rex A eats Fanatic, T-rex B eats more of T-rex A.

Victory #2 for Team Promo!

Not sure if you just posted it that way, but the game ends as soon as the villain is destroyed. You do not have to finish the round. So, if there is some ApE damage that would kill everyone, you can have it hit the villain first and win the game.

Just posted it that way.  Aware that game ends when villain goes down barring (so far) Omnitron devices still being out.

I got bailed out by an environment draw - but to a degree after the Round 5 villain draw (another Profane Summons) set me back heavily.  I think without that I would probably had prevailed since a pile of damage I had to throw at relics could have been tossed at Apostate earlier (or at the one T-rex if it appeared necessary.)  Given HP at the end I don't think the game would have gone past Round 8.  And I was probably lucky in not seeing much in the way of demons - just the one Imp before the last round.

Last match for this team will be tomorrow.  Baron Blade in some locale.  Have to decide whether to try to Blade promo, advanced, or just basic in order to max the chance that the team can complete the sweep.  Which I guess is easier for three hero team than Envisoner's on-going attempt with a five hero team.

It's fun to think of how the game WOULD continue...if I counted right, Young Legacy would have been the last survivor (except for one or both Rexes) at the end of the enviro turn, with 1 HP!  Yipe.

I'm going to be doing promo Blade for the first time, so I would just as soon you did normal Blade if he doesn't completely bore you (I've had a couple games which prove he can be a credible threat on Advanced, though I've never actually seen him drop the moon, and only had him kill the heroes once by the slimmest of margins).

Also, do note that I already completed the challenge once with my three-hero team, "The Dawnchasers".  I'm formally done, just thought it would be fun to run it again.

That was the first one I did, on one of the first couple nights. Rolled over him in Advanced mode before the first of two consecutive losses to  Apostate.

With the real known Wardens, we beat out Advanced mode Voss last night, helped in no small part by Fanatic drawing Wrathful Retribution and dealing him 26 damage. (She'd also had Zealous Offensive and Absolution come out early on , so I had little-to-no problem keeping it out.)

I'm thinking of doing Advanced Blade - but have noticed before that three hero teams are pressed a bit in the first part of the game since they have to dish out a lot of damage in the early rounds as Blade forces discards.  Though this team has some good capability to do just that, especially if Young Legacy can get an Inspired Presence out early to boost everyone's damage.

Team Promo back to work...

Match 3 - Advanced Baron Blade at The Final Wasteland

Round 1 - BB goes defensive with a Living Forcefield in addition to his Mobile Defense Platform.  Fanatic draws Absolution and starts chopping away.  Young Legacy plays Bolster Allies and Atomic Glares at the MDF.  AZEW plays a Focused Aperture and blasts as well - the MDP is looking a bit worn out by the sudden assault.  The Final Wasteland declares that it will be unforgiving to its victims.

(Adv BB discard - Living Forcefield)

Round 2 - BB puts an Elemental Redistributor out to counter AZEW since the MDP looks to be failing.  Fanatic Brutal Censures the MDP and it crashes.  She then hacks BB to draw first blood.  Legacy plays Next Evolution and Atomic Glares BB.  AZEW plays a NPCU and blasts the Redistributor.  A Rat Beast appears and claws at Fanatic.

(Adv BB discard - Hasten Doom)

Round 3 - BB calls forth another Mobile Defense Platform.  Fanatic Smites the new MDP and hacks at it with Absolution as well.  Young Legacy plays a Flying Smash and hits the Rat Beast, the Redistributor, and the MDP.  She Atomic Glares the Redistributor as well.  AZEW deploys a Cold Snap and then blasts the Rat Beast.  An Abominable Snowman appears and lurks on the edge of the battle.

(Adv BB discard - Backlash Field)

Round 4 - A Powered Remote Turret enters play and BB's side starts actually injuring heroes.  Fanatic plays Consecrated Ground and BB's equipment starts to die.  Legacy plays a Take Down to limit BB's next turn and blasts something as well.  With the Redistributor gone Cold Snap hits Blade and the other non-heroes.  AZEW then plays Hoarfire and blasts Baron Blade with cold and the Snowman with fire.  He takes fire and cold damage as well, but ends out ahead in the issue.  The Snowman decides to get involved and attacks Baron Blade (Team strategy for this round left the Remote Turret as low HP, and then Blade as 2nd low - thus the Snowman went after him.)  A New Jersey Devil appears and attacks Blade and the Powered Turret.

(Adv BB discard - Hasten Doom) <--- Yes, it is that sort of game.

Round 5 - (No villain card due to Take Down) The turret shots the heroes again.  Fanatic plays Smite the Transgressor again and then uses Absolution and Redeems as well.  Legacy deploys Motivational Charge and Atomic Glares at BB.  AZEW attacks with Cold Snap, and they plays and destroys Glacial Structure for more cards.  The Snowman attacks Blade again.  A Horrid Skunk Ape enters play.  The New Jersey Devil hits Blade and hits and destroys the Powered Remote Turret -- a victim of the Wasteland!  After the Ape hits everyone Baron Blade ends the round with 1 HP left.

(Adv BB discard - Hasten Doom)

Round 6 - Blade deploys another Elemental Redistributor.  Fanatic plays Holy Nova - and Blade flips to his Vengeful side with a -1 DR in effect.  Fanatic hits the Horrid Skunk Ape with Absolution.  Young Legacy plays Surge of Strength and does a Motivational Charge on Baron Blade.  AZEW Cold Snaps*, plays a Transducer and then blasts the Redistributor. *- The Cold Snap damage at Blade was redistributed back at AZEW - where it healed him.  The Snowman hits Baron Blade (with Cold damage redistributing to Fanatic) and a second Snowman enters the battle.

(Adv BB discard - Devious Disruption)

Round 7 - A Blade Battalion arrives and attacks Fanatic.  Hero attacks take out one Snowman, hit Baron Blade repeatedly, and cripple the Blade Battalion and the Redistributor.  Young Legacy plays another Take Down.  Some cold damage gets redistributed to Fanatic.  The remaining Snowman shreds the Blade Battalion.  An Ancient Library appears.

Round 8 - (No villain card due to Take Down)  Baron Blade gets a last attack on AZEW.  Fanatic plays Wrathful Retribution and irradiates Baron Blade for 11 points of damage.  Young Legacy Atomic Glares the Baron for 4 points.  AZEW plays a Frost Bound Drain for the final 3 points of damage.

VICTORY!

Luck in this game was Baron Blade discarding his Hasten Doom cards rather than playing them.  They certainly would have complicated the issue.  The defensive play allowed the team to control the game tempo, deploy what they wanted, get the environment monsters helping their cause, and essentially play a little with Baron Blade at the end.

Given that this team is Radiance, Glare, and Cold, there is nothing worse than a Hero Scorned.

Note that after BB flips he stops discarding cards from his deck.

I don't get the reference at the end there.

Yes, he did stop.  I was just listing the discarded card at the end of the round instead of when it happened.  Last minute addition and it does look a little weird the way I wrote it up.  I figured that the information on what he was discarding was sort of interesting since it was stuff that is generally more annoying to heroes than Elemental Redistributors.

The latter reference is a riff from a William Congreve quote -

"Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned."

Resuming my series of battles with Grand Warlord Voss in the Ruins of Atlantis…a match that many players have probably already tried, but made fresh and innovative by the inclusion of Dark Watch Mr. Fixer, at the tail end of a series of heroes also including Tempest, Haka, Chrono-Ranger and Legacy in that order.  Tempest (with Haka, no less) against Voss was my very second game ever, and I'm not sure I've ever revisited the match.  I'm curious whether Advanced Voss can manage to pull off my second ever defeat in Atlantis, an Environment which has always tended to seem like my friend.

I apparently had my GWV deck more or less in order before starting, thinking I had shuffled it, so I flip past Vyktor, Tamar, and three Forced Deployments as Voss starts the game with a Firesworn, a Guard, a Shock Troop a Soldier and a Psi-Weaver.  ("We look like one of those politically correct multi-ethnic street gangs that only rob people in Afterschool Specials!", the Psi-Weaver complains.)  Reshuffling thoroughly, I pull a Frosthound to cap the set off, and then resolve damage - Haka to 32, Legacy to 29, Haka to 30, and then everyone down 4.  Not too rough of an opening, though not the gentlest either.  Having Gene-Bound Shackles and Elemental Subwave Inducer in hand, along with Flash Flood and Reclaim the Deep, Tempest will become relevant later but is unable to contribute for now, so he draws two cards - there's the damn Chain Lightning, if only someone will remove the Guard, and an Into the Stratosphere in case they can't.  Haka has better luck, specifically in the form of a Rampage; 4 net damage to all targets is enough to destroy all the minions even without picking the Guard first, and because advanced Voss reduces damage by heroes instead of to villains (much to Absolute Zero's disgust in previous games), Haka inflicts only one point of collateral damage on himself and his allies, even while getting to take 5 net HP off of Voss!  Ko Niutirenis indeed.  (I've previously wondered why Voss is worded the way he is, and the answer just came to me in a flash of brilliance - he's trying to conquer everything, so the Environment is free to fight back against him without any reduction, as he focuses all his suppressors or whatever on the heroes who are making an obvious show of opposition to him.  It's the Brooklyn Bridge scene in Spider-Man 1 all over again.)  With the invasion having been headed off at the pass ("Son, do you have any idea how much I hate that cliche?"), Chrono-Ranger doesn't hesitate to put a By Any Means on the warlord himself, enabling him to shoot for 1.  Legacy waves a flag to double his Galvanize action and undo the drawback of Rampage.  If only BAM and Inspiring Presence hadn't been played, it would have been a perfect time for Fixer to go Overdrive, but instead he just draws 2 and requests fodder from his team.  The Kraken appears, having heard there were exotic morsels to sample, and takes his frustration at being denied out on Tempest, who is after all an alien too.

This is not the first time I've gotten Voss to flip on turn 2; I believe last time he got Forced Deployment, so his time as a Super-Thorathian Warrior was short.  This time, he opens a boom tube Quark-Drive Translocator and summons the Female Fighting Furies other gene-Bound Guard, who arrives aboard the TCF Stalwart (as far as I know Darkseid doesn't have a ship).  Properly speaking, those last two plays happen after Voss punches Legacy with his glowing fist and Tempest with his burning fist, dealing 4 net damage in both cases; that combo of Translocator and Stalwart is nasty, and this time it brings in a Psi-Weaver, one of the more dangerous things it could have put back out.  Thanks to Legacy, a Chain Lightning is more than sufficient to take out the Guard, then is equally more than sufficient against the Weaver, and then deals a completely unreduced 6 damage to Voss, followed by 5 more from a Squall that also damages the Translocator, Stalwart, and Kraken for 3 each (yes, Tempest can make it storm in space and underwater at the same time).  Since Haka cannot punch a spaceship, he decides to punish the Weak and take his frustrations out on the Translocator, leaving it at 3.  CR keeps his Eye on the Prize to deal 4 damage to Voss, digs out his Hat with Displaced Armory and shoots Voss again, puts out a Sudden Contract to make Voss the Ultimate Target and shoots him again, for 5 this time, and then shoots him once more for good measure on his power phase…that's a lot of rather large bullet holes, leaving Voss at 55.  Though tempted to THOKK! something or try to help Tempest with a Motivational Charge, Legacy does the responsible thing and just Bolsters his Allies, which happens to draw Haka another Rampage…these two are synergizing nicely today.  Fixer has just drawn a Grease Monkey Fist, which will let him do a Bitter Strike for 6 net damage against the Stalwart, but he lacks any way to both do that and kill the Translocator, as Overdrive or Dual Crowbars will leave him dealing melee damage to which the ship is immune.  So he ignores the Ship, ignores the Translocator which is about to become Kraken food, and just puts down a Pipe Wrench so he can both attack and block.  He Bitterly destroys Punish the Weak (I tend to think it's not a sentiment he approves of), deals 6 to Voss, and lets the Kraken do its thing.  The Kraken's thing unsurprisingly involves a Leaking Room.

The Stalwart bombards the heroes, leaving Tempest at 10; Voss plays a Gene-Bound Bionaut and another Psi-Weaver, then deals 4 net damage each to Haka and Tempest, triggering The Ultimate Target and letting CR shoot something…he decides that it's time he took a piece out of the Stalwart, even if the damage is only 3 instead of 5.  The Stalwart fetches a Shock Infantry, which means Tempest doesn't die this turn, but he is reduced to 2 by the previous 2 minions, and Legacy takes the 4-point hit from the Shock Troop (because he's standing in water).  Tempest then kills all three Minions, damages the Stalwart, and clobbers his Archenemy for 5 one last time before quite probably dying.  Haka punches Voss for 4, CR shoots the Stalwart for 3, Legacy stands there looking pretty, and Fixer gets CR's permission to consume The Ultimate Target while punching Voss for 6.  Unfortunately, as the battle moves into a Phosphorescent Chamber, the Kraken devours Tempest, who doesn't have to discard any of his 8 awesome cards that he'll never get to play.

The Stalwart lays down another carpet-bombing which is increased by 1 by the Chamber, Voss plays another Translocator and then Forced Deployment (alas, Tempest could have sent that Into the Stratosphere if he lived, one of the few ways of thwarting it), and Voss now picks on both Legacy and Haka.  The team has lost its mass-damager, so the only way to hit the Translocator (or Kraken) without taking pressure off of Voss would be for Haka to Rampage, which would unfortunately no longer be reduced against the heroes, but instead increased to absurd proportions.  So he opts to go tanky with Haka of Restoration, but changes his mind and discards only 1 card (a second Rampage) instead of a whole bunch - because his other drawn card is a Ground Pound which the heroes will badly need.  Oh, then I noticed that I had forgotten Tempest's incap ability, which would have made a difference by turning off the heroes' susceptibility to melee damage so Haka could Rampage safely; not having a better option I'll instead have him grant immunity to energy damage, letting the heroes ignore the Stalwart for a turn and canceling Voss's attack against the highest-HP hero, though unfortunately not against the lowest.  Returning to linear time, the Haka of Restoration gives Haka back 1 HP, +1 from the Phosphorescent Chamber, and then he Crushes Voss for 6 damage, as it appears pointless to try and deal with any ancillary targets at this point - Voss's HP is so low, and that of the heroes likewise, that their best chance is to aim for the head and hope they can win the race.  CR throws a Ranger's Mark to put The Ultimate Target back on Voss, shooting him for 6, then plays Just Doin' My Job, discarding another Ranger's Mark since he's not long on Bounties.  Other heroes all discard, CR draws 4, and more importantly he shoots Voss for 6.  Oh, and I forgot the Stalwart was supposed to produce a minion, which would trigger Translocator, so I have to rewind now…the minion was a Bionaut, and produced a redundant Forced Deployment, then dealt 3 damage to Haka.  I'm fairly certain I forgot to record the damage Voss dealt to Haka (and Legacy), so he's now down to 6, having dropped to 4 on his turn.  CR shoots Voss one more time, which leaves him at 10 if I haven't miscounted, and Legacy gives him a THOKK for 6 more.

At this point, the timeline diverges slightly whether I'm right or wrong on the math to date, but the outcome is much the same either way…if Voss is a little healthier than I think, Fixer can play Grease Gun to keep the heroes alive for one more turn, and Haka can buy one more after that with Ground Pound, giving the heroes two full turns to pound on Voss.  Forced Deployment complicates that process a bit, since Haka can't both Rampage and Ground Pound in one round, and would risk dying if he didn't Ground Pound first, so the heroes might have to leave the Minions in play, making Voss almost impossible to damage.  Still, I'm fairly certain they could sort it out, as high as their damage amounts have gotten.  But I'm fairly certain Voss is indeed down to 3 at this point, so Fixer can just finish him off with a Charge and not even have to Bitter Strike.  In fact, I'm almost certain I didn't screw up my math enough that he couldn't kill Voss with both Charge and Bitter Strike…having a net +3 to each of those damage instances (the Bionaut subtracts 1, which I believe I forgot to account for above, so he had a couple more HP that way as well) means that they total 11, and I'd have to have erred quite a bit indeed for that not to suffice, especially with the Kraken potentially able to finish the job.  Still, there are enough possibilities that I'm not going to bother to try and sort it all out, recalculating all my math from the start of the game; I'll just declare victory, as the heroes seem to have matters well enough in hand.

Next time:  Mad Bomber Blade!

No, I get that part, but why the "Radiance, Cold and Glare" bit?  Is that quoting something too?

No.  My team was Redeemer Fanatic doing tons of radiant damage; e.g. the owning of Iron Legacy in my one match.  Absolute Zero Elemental Wrath mainly doing cold damage.  And Young Legacy with the Atomic Glare.  The woman scorned radiating cold while glaring at you.  A bit convoluted, but better than just calling the victorious group "Team Promo". 

Working on a core villain team right now. Took down advanced Dawn and Voss. Debating on whether to go promos or original for the other two. I like doing the original, but it might be too easy. Hmmm...maybe I will do those first, then go back to the promos.

EDIT: Beat advanced Omnitron and Baron Blade. Those games were so easy, I think I might have to go back and play the promos. I don't have a name yet, but I will put in a place holder.

The Excoriators?  Otherwise, it's Legacy, Expatriette, O-X and Tempest, so...yeah, I got nothing connecting those four.

Yeah, I got nothing. Maybe I should have considered that before I picked the team.

Legacy and the Outcast. Expat was exiled from her home. Tempest is the only Maerynian that decided to take up violence after the Voss incident, plus he is an alien on Earth! And Omnitron-X is a reformed villain, thus no longer invited to villain parties.

Not bad, although it sounds like band. What instrument would each of them play? And how would the Argent Adept feel about it?

Legacy with a Banjo, Omnitron-X with a Theremin, Expat with a Guitar, and Tempest with some sort of crazy, alien instrument that we never heard of.

That settles it, unless I think of something else, they are Legacy and the Outcasts.

I would give the Theremin to Tempest myself.  Omnitron could play (as) the synthesizer.

Back in the game now.

Omni-X, Wraith, Expat, Fixer took down nemesis #2, The Chairman in a rather perfect game.

Wraith started with 2 Hairdryers, Expat got Shotgun round 2, and Omni got Ablative and Bio-Engineering beam early.

Chairman flipped quick, but The Contract was in the trash so the big threats were gone.  Wraith found both Prison Breaks in three rounds and we burned all the underbosses on round three.  We used Pike to do a lot of damage to the Operative, and Wraith with Stun Bolt, Stealth, Micro and Combat helped whittle the Chairman down.  Fixer got Wrench/Mantis and with Stun Bolt on the Chairman we were beating him up pretty soundly.

The turn before we would hit the first Prison Break Omni threw a 16 damage Singularity and then used Bio Engineering Beam to finish the Chairman off.

2 down, Dawn and Spite to go.

These games are really showing off how wickedly powerful Wraith is.  Eyepiece/Stun Bolt is sick.

Promo Ladies versus advanced Iron Legacy in the Time Catacylsm! I guess I could have done Matriarch for Team Leader Tachyon instead, but let's face it, Iron Legacy is obviously the only appropriate choice for her nemesis.

First matchup was a brutal hard-fought loss. Iron Legacy just got every card he needed to shut the heroes down, destroying vital ongoings (Next Evolution, I hardly knew ye!) and blocking damage dealing and of course dishing out a relentless avalance of pain. And when he flipped, things got worse. I never even realized how bad his flip side was advanced until I was all "Okay, Nightmist will redirect his damage... wait, he'll just redirect it back to Young Legacy. Urrrrgh." It took a while, but he killed everyone. As he so often does.

Second match went much better! All the vital cards I was hoping for that the first game didn't deliver showed up: throat jabs, heroic interventions, hypersonic assault, to buy me time from his huge piles of pain, and mistbounds and take downs to stop him from getting more pain out in play. Also, this team turns out to be pretty much an unstoppable ongoing destruction engine, between blinding speed, grappling hooks, and the all-star Planar Banishment. So the team managed to get him down to manageable health levels, and then brutually finish him off in one round so they never had to deal with desperation mode.

I'm really digging this team! A lot of versatility and useful effects. (Refresher: Young Legacy, Team Leader Tachyon, Dark Watch Nightmist, Dark Watch Expatriette, and Rook City Wraith.)

You could have used Golem Unity to get a match against Iron Legacy and still had Tachy fight the Matriarch.

Well, finally I'm getting around to the fourth match of the team I'm calling "Leaders of the Hunt"  (Haka and CR are hunters, Legacy is a leader and Fixer is at least a mentor, and with Tempest it's not too much of a stretch to assume that he's a leader to the Maerynian refugees; he and Haka at least, debatably Chrono-Ranger as well, are also being hunted by their nemeses, and thus "leading" them on a merry chase, while Blade is also "hunting" Legacy in his Death-Ray Wielder version, and Chairman is meanwhile a villainous take on the "leaders" part, as is Voss).  This time, I'm trying out Mad Bomber Blade for the first time (my second consecutive promo villain match, as my last non-solitaire game was against Skinweaver), using Insula Primalis as an on-theme setting, and the assigning each hero to one of the two positions they haven't yet held, with Haka first and Legacy last, putting a damper on the Big White Cheese's potency, while I try out his previously-wimpy nemesis in a slightly meaner version (still only Difficulty 2 from what I hear, and this won't be Advanced).  This will be my last game in the series with Bitter Fixer, before reverting to his original version for the Chairman game; it's a bit of a pity I never got around to involving Young Legacy in this game marathon, but since I don't own her physical card, I definitely don't want to involve her in a game against a promo villain who I also don't have on paper, and leaving her dad out of the Chairman game would be near suicide, so there won't be any promos in that one at all.  Well anyway, enough rambling, let's get on with the fight.

Our adorable little Mad Bomber comes out swinging with a Hasten Doom, then converts a Blade Batallion into a bomb, and is done for round 1.  With 1 damage to everyone incoming, Haka decides it'd be a good time to play Ta Moko, then Crushes Blade down to 28.  He draws his second copy of Ground Pound...so much for the Good Doctor's dastardly plan.  Fixer goes Haka one better and plays a Hoist Chain, then destroys Ta Moko to hit Blade, who's down to 25 and won't be dealing much damage next turn.  Tempest lays Gene-Bound Shackles, letting him Squall for 3; CR Displaces his Hat, then lays Compounded Bow to knock Blade down to 19.  Though Inspiring Presence or Take Down might be wiser, Legacy can't resist putting the nemesis bonus to work for him and plays THOKK! for 4 damage...one round in and Blade has lost half his health!  Now, with Galvanize applied, he's really in trouble.  Fortunately for him, the velociraptors don't smell his fear; instead, Primordial Plant Life occurs, and with Fixer having destroyed the only Ongoing that existed, everyone takes 4 damage.

Blade's first little Bomb-Omb explodes on the end of a Hoist Chain, affecting nobody but Legacy; he plays a Living Force Field.  Fat lot of good it does him; Haka gives him an Elbow Smash and then a Crush for 5 damage, then Fixer Meditates out a Grease Monkey Fist, bashing Blade with Jim's Hat for 4 net haberdashery damage and a renewed -1 penalty.  Tempest hits Blade with Ball Lightning, flipping him and then destroying the Force Field; the Hoist Chain is destroyed, then a Galvanized Shackle-Squall reduces Death-Ray Blade to 36 HP.  Having  no Bounties, Jim lays down Danny Boy just as a Bitter Strike target, then unloads the Compound Bow for 4 damage to Blade.  Seeing no reason to bother with Inspiring Presence, nor to allow Blade to do anything whatsoever this game, Legacy plays Take Down, falling to 11 HP but leaving Blade helpless.  Now the Velociraptors arrive, and Legacy looks delicious to them; he drops to 9.

BBB deals 0 damage to a hero who isn't Legacy, and such is the sum total of his "legacy" for this game, it might seem.  Haka has another Elbow Smash, totaling 7 damage this time, and Fixer puts out a Tire Iron, Bitter Striking with Danny-Boy for 5.  Tempest lays down an Electrical Storm and Squalls for 4.  CR keeps his Eye on the Prize, draws into Just Doin' My Job and plays that; nobody else bothers to discard, but he deals 2 more damage, then 4 with the Bow.  Though tempted to do Take Down again, Legs doesn't want to deprive the velociraptors of their new 8-HP meal by becoming bloodier; he therefore plays Inspiring Presence, regaining his 10th HP.  If a second Velociraptor showed up, that would have been game right there; instead there's a River of Lava to which Blade is strangely immune, and Legs falls to 5 HP, then 3 as the Raptors again change targets.  Apart from Haka, the other characters all have Equipment, but choose to go for a swim in the lava instead, as none of them is below 20 HP.  (I wonder if I miscounted on Legacy; the nemesis bonus shouldn't have hurt him that much.)

The Baron actually does get to have one turn of activity, such as it is; all he does is play and destroy a Blade Batallion.  Makes you wonder why Legacy bothered to Take him Down at all.  With just 5 HP left after being Crushed by Haka, BB ends up on the wrong end of Fixer's Tire Iron, and that's game.

So far, not impressed with the promo Baron Blade; perhaps without four heroes plus Legacy, he might have survived long enough to accomplish something, but overall a villain with 70 HP and no defenses whatsoever tends not to fare that well, I suspect.  The Huntleaders remain unblemished by failure with only one game left in their series; let's see if I can manage to call it a clean sweep, even against perhaps the single hardest match in the game (short of its own Advanced version).

If I counted a couple of half-completed online games which I usually don't, this is now my 99th or 100th game of Sentinels (the latter is unconfirmed, I know of two off-the-record-games but vaguely suspect a third), so it seems a good time to take on a match too dreadful for me to even contemplate before: the Chairman in Rook City.  Not feeling compelled to do Mr. Pike any favors, I'm putting Legacy in position 1 for this knock-out title bout; all the heroes will spend their entire game Galvanized unless he dies, or pulls off the LeadFront + NextEvo combo, which I believe I've only ever achieved once in almost 20 games with Legs.  CR and Fixer switch their positions from the last game, and Tempest bats cleanup at the end.  This is it, folks, the only chance the previously undefeated HuntLeaders will have, with no rematches and only hours left on the clock, to secure their place in gaming history.

For his initial play, the Chairman brings out The Fence, who's easily the least dangerous Underboss...and then the Operative brings out the Contract, who's the worst (okay, you could make an argument for the Broker instead, but at least she's fairly easy to kill).  A Thief appears, then Haka gets shot for 3, and then a Hired Gun appears and everyone gets shot for 3.  Not a gentle start...  With the Thieves being thick while more dangerous things need to die, the heroes decide to try living without cards in play, and Legacy facilitates with a Bolster Allies.  After him, every hero in this group has a built-in damage power, and all of them are boosted by Galvanize; a Terrible Tech-Strike lets CR single-handedly exterminate The Contract (it would be more efficient to leave him at 2 for Tempest to finish off and Quick-Shot the Operative instead, but I couldn't resist), and the Operative deals 3 to Legacy.  Haka says "ow" a lot, spelling it in traditional Maori fashion; he gans 2 HP and draws a card, then punches the Operative for 3.  Now that my Fixer isn't Bitter anymore, I go ahead and draw Bloody Knuckles for the first time in at least four games; having no one-shots in hand except Meditation, and not wanting to break with the plan, Fixer just punches the Operative for 2 and doesn't play a card...his reward for this act of sacrifical teamwork is to draw a Charge.  Tempest talks to the fish and draws three cards before killing the Thief and almost killing the Hired Gun; Oppy hits Haka for 3.  Rook City gets annoying with Twisting Back Alleys, and the heroes decide not to stand for this delay in their offensive; the villain play is "Rook City is Mine!", which plays more Back Alleys and Toxic Sludge, then Blighted Streets comes out, and the heroes destroy the second Back Alleys by playing a Prison Break, which puts the Contract back into play just before the Sludge happens, with a total of +2 damage to all heroes...wait, make that +3 since there's now a second Blighted Streets.  Fuuuun.  The Sludge deals 2 to the Operative, 2 to the Contract, and then 5 to each hero, and then 3 to the Operative, and then 6 to each hero.  That...didn't go according to plan.  Guess I should have just kept to the Back Alleys.

Haka is the HP leader at all of 16, while Tempest has 12, and the Organization starts their second turn.  Perfect Human Specimens gives the Operative back 6 HP, then she dials up the Broker.  The Thief reappears, Hired Gun deals 5 to each hero, The Contract deals 5 to Haka, another Hired Gun arrives, an Informant arrives, and Hired Gun deals another 5 to all, leaving Haka at 1 and Tempest at 2, with Legacy the party tank at 5.  Rather desperately wishing he had Next Evo just for himself, Legs Galvanizes without playing a card, since the Operative will kill him as soon as anything dies.  CR puts his Eye on the Prize, the Prize being the Informant, and Legacy dies to the Operative.  He Displaces his Hat, shoots Oppy for 2, and lays down a Terrible Tech-Strike for 3 damage to Oppy and 2 to the Fence.  Tempted to Rampage just so that the heroes can die at the hands of a friend rather than these foes, Haka instead plays the Taiaha, bashing the Contract and the Broker down to 2 each.  Not having a Grease Gun to save the day with, Fixer settles for Charging and Striking the Operative for 5.  In a desperate gambit, Tempest throws a Flash Flood on the two Blighted Streets, bringing Undivided Attention into play to kill CR and Fixer in some order, then giving Oppy 6 more HP.  In probably the most tragic ending in Sentinels history (certainly my particular slice of the Multiverse), Tempest Squalls for enough damage to kill every single member of the Organization currently in play, except for the Chariman, the Operative, and one Hired Gun...and then dies to retaliation damage after the first such casualty.  Haka is left with 1 HP, and the Operative kills him in retaliation for a Falling Statue having found something healthier than him to squish.

Oh well, "Leaders of the Hunt" wasn't that cool a name for a hero team.  It was still fun to tackle this epic match...oh, how differently it might have gone if I'd left the Back Alleys alone (and finished off that first Hired Gun).

Game 3 for Omni-X, Mr. Fixer, Wraith, Expat.

Vs. Advanced Dawn in Insula Primalis.

We stomped Dawn, MVP of the fight is a close nod to Mr. Fixer, he sat on Hoist Chain/Mantis all game, lowering Dawn's damage and redirecting her shot every round.

We got card locked pretty early, but Omni had one each of his four components, and Wraith had utility stun bolt razor, and Omni kept feeding Expat cards with timeshift, two unloads with Shotgun Pride and Assault rifle out were nice, and Dawn went down without flipping.  We saw one of that card, but it was to open the game, which is always a great sign.

We got Dawn to -4 damage one round, overdrive for Fixer, stun bolt and nitrogen rounds.

Assault Battery and Summer were a wicked start, 30 damage before we got to play, but after that she was rather tame, Tears, Spring, two blinding blasts, a healing light, channel the eclipse and Hammer for the last card played. 

The new Spite is up next (first match vs. him) to complete the circuit and name the team.

Emo Spite in Rook City!

So we got an opening good samaritan and a lost child, Omni put both under, Samaritan got us on the prowl, no victims in play to destroy, but searched and got us an innocent bystander.  Then Omni timeshifted and got Good Samaritan #2.  Fixer puts both under, Samaritan #2 gets us Lab raid.

So four were under, and Spite was on his second side with two drugs face up with no way to flip any more.  We did fine with Mynd Pyre and Demon's Kiss out, Wraith stun bolted Spite and that negated both of those cards.  Fixer got Mantis, and so Spite did nothing to us once we smacked Fixer a couple times to make him lowest HP.  Easiest fight ever.

I would definitely suggest doing anything to get more cards in play, if you can get (H) victims under the safehouse before he flips all the drugs it makes the game a ton easier.

Team name is Rook City Reboot.  

Afraid you did this incorrectly - you play and fully resolve the card first, and only then does the Samaritan get saved, if the card you played didn't destroy him first.  This is because you stop mid-sentence if necessary to resolve new effects, so the actual chain of card play events goes from "Play a villain card -> Samaritan is safe" to "Play a villain card -> destroy a Victim -> search out a Victim -> Samaritan is safe".  If another Victim is in play, you can have On the Prowl destroy that, then save the Samaritan, but otherwise, as soon as the Samaritan dies, the rest of his text ceases to exist (except for the "Spite gains H hp" part, which is inserted into the order as soon as its trigger condition occurs, and is the last thing to resolve before Samaritan dies).

negated both of those cards.  Fixer got Mantis, and so Spite did nothing to us once we smacked Fixer a couple times to make him lowest HP.  Easiest fight ever. I would definitely suggest doing anything to get more cards in play, if you can get (H) victims under the safehouse before he flips all the drugs it makes the game a ton easier. Team name is Rook City Reboot.  [/quote]

Game 4: Advanced Agent Of Gloom Spite in Rook City.

Uuuuuuuugh.

That's all I have to say about Spite, really. Especially in an H=5 game, with him blocking 3 damage a turn and returning 3 equip/ongoing a round to their owner's hands? My other losses I replayed, but I just didn't really feel like going through that again.  It's just not the fun kind of difficult for me. Sorry, team bonus! Maybe next time.

Game 5: Advanced Skinwalker Gloomweaver in the Tomb of Anubis.

It's amazing, going back to a game where I can deal damage, get my heroes set up, and where the environment actually plays a significant role! Wow! Ha ha, this is fun! Oh, shit, he just murdered almost everyone. Young Legacy managed to stay alive thanks to a legacy ring and two next evolutions, and a danger sense let her avoid the tomb's traps and dodge the rotting god while he, well, rotted into non-existence (being sliced, diced, and flambeed by the tomb's various trials helped accelerate the matter.)

I will have a small mess to post tomorrow, but it currently includes a victory against normal Apostate with the Prime Wardens and victories against Baron Blade, Ambuscade, and Gloomweaver (all on advanced mode) with a team made of Legacy, Unity, Nightmist, AZ, and Tempest. Hoping to get the game against Voss in tonight.

Although I didn't get the game against Voss in last night, I did today -- also against Cosmitron, with the Police Backup being the ones to finish the villain and only Ryan left standing. I'll get the pre-deadline games entered into the spreadsheet, just to see where we ended up.

OK, part 1 of this write-up (not sure how much I'll finish tonight before going to bed):

My lineup consisted of Legacy, Nightmist, Absolute Zero, Unity, and Tempest, in that order for all of the games. I decided in advance to work from easiest villain to hardest, and to run all of them in Advanced mode. Since I don't own Shattered Timelines, I used Ambuscade as a "nemesis" for Absolute Zero and Cosmic Omnitron as the "nemesis" for Unity.

The first match against Baron Blade took place in Insula Primalis. After the Baron put out a Living Force Field on his first turn, things got dicey for just a few rounds. So dicey, in fact, that we flipped the Baron on the last possible turn (his post-turn discard put 17 cards into his trash) since we lost some equipment and ongoings to the Baron over the first few rounds and had dinosaurs to deal with on top of the rest. Once we flipped him, we managed to get a sequence of cards that let us pummel the Baron at will.

Round 2, against Ambuscade -- I can't remember where right now, but think it might have been Atlantis -- started with him staying under the cloak for a round while we pummeled it and both Reactive Platings. Even on Advanced Mode, he didn't have much way to stop us building up and we just steamrolled him.

Round 3 was against Gloomy in the Realm of Discord (only fitting). We managed to keep the Zombies and Cultists under control, and hit the Grimoire early. However, it made the most sense to focus on pummeling Gloomy himself since we had lost of energy tupes available, and it only got dicey at the end when Time Flies triggered two consecutive Vast Followings. However, at that point Gloomweaver had been flipped and under 20 hit points, so we managed to survive the end of his turn and finish kicking the crap out of him.

I'll try to write up the rest tomorrow, but the short version is that Voss was a tough fight but doable, while Cosmitron very nearly cleaned our clocks -- Frost was into "survive" mode and it was the Police Backup that fired off the winning shot.