Bosses

Okay, so, this has been rattling around my head for a while, and I can't come to a final answer, so I figured I'd ask you guys.

In Rook City, The Chairman is clearly the final boss, as we all know.

And in Shattered Timelines, I asked on the twitter if there would be any more level 4 villains, and the response said "One!" And I think we can all guess who that's going to be. Which only makes sense, since that villain is kind of a big deal.

But what about Infernal Relics? GloomWeaver and The Ennead are both level 3, but which one do you guys think classifies as the final boss of IR? GloomWeaver is on the box art, but there's only the nemeses of the two heroes on there, so I don't think that necessarily indicates he's the final boss. I just can't decide which one it is.

Who's the final boss: The Ennead or GloomWeaver?

"Final boss" being determined by difficulty between the two (not numerical difficulty).

Am I the only one that considers Apostate one of the more insane villains ever? I've been able to put the beat down on Gloomweaver and the Ennead but when I did a solo test on Apostate I was like "wow... no".

He can be pretty difficult, yeah. He's pretty much the hardest level 2 villain, so he's bordering on being a level 3. I'm still curious as to what other people think, but I think I'm leaning towards The Ennead. Even if GloomWeaver is level 3, I've never seen him be as difficult as The Ennead is consistently.

Definitely the Ennead, although it really depends on the mix. And, to be fair, how often they find the cards that bring out more of them.

That's true. The last two times I played The Ennead, we were playing on advanced, so we had the full team against us within a couple of turns. But even on normal mode, they can still cause some severe chains and deal a lot of damage. Not only that, but giving them incapacitated powers makes it worse. Fighting them is pretty much like playing PvP.

actually, I find Gloomweaver to be one of the easiest villains, pretty much level 1-2. The Ennead can be harsh, especially on advanced, but thematically, I would actually say Apostate. He's the guy with all the relics. And maybe we've just had bad luck with the relic combinations he gets, but on average he's been harder than the Ennead for us.

Ennead is pretty much the hardest of the two for me.

Although, I've consistently had more trouble with Ambuscade than with any of the IR villains.

Honestly, I agree too. Now that I think about it, GloomWeaver has never given us a significant challenge.

But I was considering Apostate too. He is really strong, and pretty scary theme-wise. We've always had a significant amount of trouble with him, and truthfully: he's never flipped when we've played him. We're too afraid of how strong he might get.

Really, it's more of a toss-up between The Ennead and Apostate, but I'd still lean to The Ennead because a fight against them is challenging and also quite dramatic, what with so many people involved. Not saying Apostate isn't dramatic; he certainly is. Whenever I play against him, I can always hear "One-Winged Angel" playing in my head.

Both by his theme and how powerful he is, I think that Apostate is the "final boss" of ... Infernal Relics.

I have not played Apostate or the Ennead on advanced yet, but the infernal emmissary has been the most consistently dangerous at normal level.

Gloomweaver, well, can be a pain if the cards are with him, but often is not. I think it would be a good candidate for a villain promo card.

Gloomweaver is a 1 unless you pick an all-melee/projectile team or the first three cards are the relics. His deck has zero synergy and he can't post a significant threat until he flips.

I think the final boss of Infernal Relics is Apostate. But that's probably because I recently watched through Buffy the Vampire Slayer and I keep imagining him as Nathan Filion's character.

Have you guys tried the "Richard Launius Special" for Gloomweaver? I'm curious to find how much more difficult his house rule makes things (I'm assuming the answer is "very"). 

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/878230/how-difficult-do-you-find-gloomweaver

I haven't tried it yet, but I am very much looking forward to it. His Voodoo Pin tweak is HOT. On the other hand, I still think what I really want for the character is a way to play his relics faster to bring his flip and alternate win condition into play. I've also been considering a version of Vast Following that searches the deck for a relic if there are none in the trash. The idea is more guaranteed ways to get relics into play and punish you for ignoring them.

I think I like the "zombies have H+2 hp" rule, and I like the "pinned players have to destroy their pin before they can deal damage to anything else", but I don't think I'll use the "pins can only be damaged by the hero it's pinning" rule. That seems to be overly harsh to heroes who aren't big blasters, and I like the idea of heroes teaming up to get a pin off of their more support-oriented partners. 

I would rather have the pins act normally, except that Gloomweaver plays one card by pin in play at the beginning of his turn. I think it would make him and his pins more frightening, but at the same time, keeping the pins could help to find the third relic faster.

Are you playing on advanced mode?   My guess is "no" or the answer would be obvious that it's the Ennead, in terms of difficulty.   Gloomweaver is far and away the easiest villain in the game.    Easier than the level 1 BB or Omnitron, for sure.   I've never lost against him with any combination of heroes.   How he got to be "level 3" is a joke, maybe to make Richard Lannius feel good about himself.

Well, let's be fair. In his BGG post, Launius said Gloomweaver started much, much harder and got easier as play testing progressed, and that the "3" rating probably came from an earlier incarnation of the villain. That seems like a believable story.

Yeah, according to those house rules he posted (which sound more like the original rules), GloomWeaver was probably supposed to be much more threatening and god-like. I'll give those house rules a shot and see if GloomWeaver suddenly becomes a monster.

True. Gloomeweaver was never a problem. I do like his theme and his style. ALso, I like betaing the crap out of my likeness in a card. God my card is such a douche to deal with. 

The first time we played GloomWeaver, he got out all his relics by turn 3 or 4 and destroyed us. We deemed him very difficult. Then we beat him easily. Then again. Then again. Then again.

Much like Voss, things can go south fast, but when they don't...

Your card is DEFINITELY a high priority in our group.  But a well placed (and buffed) Grievous Hailstorm after a few One-Shots and innate 2 damage powers usually is enough to take you and your reanimated zombie corpse out. :3

Yeah right, he's got nothing on the Cursed Acolyte. It's a shame no one like his original  amount of damage.

Agreed.  If that had stayed around, I don't think anybody would be complaining about his difficulty.

I think both Gloomweaver and the Ennead can both be very hard, and also be very easy. The Ennead's advanced form is most definatly harder than Gloomweaver's, but when Gloomweaver flips, it's all over for the most part (though I've not had that happen when I faced him.) I'd say in advanced mode, the Ennead, while regular goes to Gloomweaver. Some of his stuff can be just annoying.

Cursed Acolyte? I don't remember him, 

I think he might be the one who deals H - 2 Infernal damage and H - 2 something-else (Fire or Melée I think) damage at the end of the villain turn.

Yeah, and originally he dealt everyone X, where X = the number of cards in their hand.

Ho-ly sshhhh…well crap, I wouldn't want to play as Nightmist (or Tempest, or Wraith, or…well, lots of heroes, actually) against him! That sounds like it was pretty painful, and I can see why it was changed, even if the guy does only have about 6hp or something…he'd still be able to hit you once unless you had Ab'Zero playing with his Sub-Zero Atmosphere in play, I suppose. Sounds like he was more of a threat than Gloomy himself ;).

http://www.moxdiamond.com/images/cards/magic/FourthEdition/78f4831cfce7fb52ce8c76f23283d54d_w200.jpg

You mean evil like this card?

Hehe, I remember those days.  I used to love having both Black Vise and The Rack out.  It left them a very narrow window to exist in.

I rather liked it, because heroes had a threat hanging over their heads to not go overboard with card draw.  It represented something that doesn't exist in the game yet - a really good reason to exercise card moderation.  I still hope to see something like it someday.

Also, it was fire damage, and Absolute Zero regularly saved the team by curbstomping that guy.

Generally speaking, I'm ok with the concept of needing to exercise card moderation, but I think the primary problem was that it disproprotionately targetted specific heroes.  Haka greatly benefits from a large hand, but at least with the hakas, he could get his hand size down if needed.  For Wraith, Tempest, or Fanatic (all with card draw and no way to play more), if you drew a few extra cards early in the game, and you'd be taking 6 damage a turn with no way to avoid it.  Had he said "discard as many cards as you like" then take X, it would have been fine, but as he was, those characters just had to eat it.

You can always skip your draw phase to avoid drawing a big hand if someone is smacking you around because of it. 

It'd bugger up Nightmist pretty well too - she can't do much unless she has a few zillion cards to discard. Mind you, I suppose if she had a few spare ones out and her Amulet in play, it wouldn't be such a problem after all... >:)

On Normal Mode, I think the Ennead are pretty much the easiest of the Villains to fight.  Unless they get very lucky and chain nearly their entire team out in the first turn or two, they fall really quickly.  They are too easily controlled.

On Advanced Mode, the Ennead are monsters that are almost impossible to beat.  (Okay, I exaggerate, but still...)  Without certain hero combos, they set up so fast and combo so effectively that they will steamroll your hero team even when you get a good start.

Gloomweaver can be hard, but mostly gets beat regardless of Advanced or Normal setup.

The villain that is hardest across the board in IR is Apostate, though.  (*Grumble Grumble* Back to back Apocalypse *Grumble Grumble*)

I've only got 4 games in so far, but I was wondering who is considered the boss of the main game?

Thematically, I would say Baron Blade. But well… he's a bit of a pushover. Difficulty wise, I think Citizen Dawn.

Although now I think that Iron Legacy might make a case for it.

No, I meant in the base game.  I figured it was Warlord Voss or Citizen Dawn, but I haven't faced off against Dawn yet.

Oh missed that. Yeah... Dawn. You really need to have your act together to stop her little army, whereas most of Voss's minions are essentially fodder barring specific immunities.

I do agree that thematically Iron Legacy feels like the boss of the overal game though!

…until Vengeance, maybe.

I can't emphasize enough how much I want Sentinels to have an overall final boss for the entire game. One that makes The Chairman look like a walk in the park.

I'm hoping it's that great cosmic being that resurrected Omnitron, and can be seen crushing the earth in Nightmist's deck.

I have the same hopes/speculations, evandan55.

Herald-Galactus Combo Villain with over 200 HP?

Yes.

I've never had an issue with Gloomweaver either. I don't think I've ever even had him flip on me.

Apostate ends up either being ridiculously difficult or ridiculously easy depending on how his cards come out, but either way I've never had him flip either.

The Ennead are pretty tough, but with a well thought out team and either a healer or someone who can purely absorb their damage, they can be put down.

The Chairman and Co. are ridiculously hard unless you have a way to negate melee damage (seriously, getting one of the Legacies out there with Next Evolution and Lead From the Front gets rid of the vast majority of the damage from the group).

Citizen Dawn tends to be the most difficult because her flunkies deal a decent amount of a wide spectrum of damage types. They can flood the field and if you take them out she goes invincible until they flood the board again.

There is one possibility: that Kismet is level 4 and you know who (look at my picture) is level 5...

And why not? Is he not the best villain so far in the game?

I've playtested him a few times already and he can still be harder. We're working on making him difficult.

I just managed to down the Ennead on Advanced mode a short time ago. Wraith's Smoke Bombs, Tempest's Gene-Bound Shackles, and Bunker's...utility really helped turn the Pike Industrial Plant against them. The victory was really tied to a series of fortunate events, such as the Ennead not chaining a bunch of cards each turn, and having TWO vats that dealt 1, 1, and 1 damage along with a hero team evened out on HP and Smoke Bombs reducing almost all of the damage to zero.

It was awesome to see so much HP eaten out of the Ennead each turn by rats and vats, I must say.

Is now a good time to point out that Smoke Bombs only applies to Villain cards? :\

Made that mistake myself once or twice.

Damn. Just a many days ago I was speaking incorrectly about Lead From the Front with this same issue. One of these days, I'll tackle that toughie nemesis of mine called literacy.

Now I'm sad. L'sigh!