Thoughts on Shattered Timelines.

I'm interested in hearing your thoughts on your first few games with ST and sharing mine.

So far, I've played one game, Iron Legacy vs Omintron X, The Scholar and Chrono Ranger in the Final Wasteland.  It was a nail biter.  After I went through the final environment turn and doled out the damage, I thought I had lost.  As I began packing up, I stopped and realized I had, in fact, won.  What I had missed was that when Iron Legacy is flipped, he is not immune to environment damage and would thus, have been destroyed.  My thoughts on Iron Legacy is that your best chance for success against him is to have at least one, preferably two controllers and a damage dealer.  Heroes who require some setup, such as Absolute Zero, are going to struggle against him because games against Iron Legacy are going to be fast and brutal.  But if you are able to limit damage and get rid of ongoing cards while having one hero deal out some decent damage, then he may be fairly easy to defeat.  Omnitron X was very helpful against Iron Legacy because I was able to reduce the damage dealt and also turn that into attack opportunities.  I could never really get The Scholar or Chrono Ranger off the ground, but did get in a couple of decent attacks that made all the difference.

Final environment turn? If the environment deck runs out of card you reshuffle it into a new deck :)

Unless there is an auto loose situation in Final Wasteland  ia m forgeting...

as for your topic post, I got /trounced/ by La Capitan the other day. When she flipped she had 8 cards und her (double play thanks to paradorica magnifica of the card that steals the top card from each players deck, and she already had 2 cards under her) and trying to beat through that and kill her crew as they were flying from the masts to beat me into submission... was not working. Couple of Villionous Weaponry from Atlantis and 2 krakens in a row was the end of that game

I got the impression that Aaron was referring to the last environment turn of the game, after which the game ended because everyone was dead.

well that could very well be true! That’s what I get for reply to topics at 6am

Yeah, that's what I meant.  It was the turn that ended the game.   Killing, I thought at first, my final two heroes, but then realized Iron Legacy could be damaged and thus, was destroyed instead.

With Iron Legacy, you're screwed if you cannot deal with his Ongoings.  He just has SO MANY terrible things packed onto each of those cards!

I'm really liking ST so far.  I've played a few games and had quite a bit of luck.

My very first game was Nightmist, Fanatic, Haka, and I think Crono Ranger as the 4th.   Anyway, Nightmist drew Planar Banishment in her opening draw, flipped a 3, and got rid of all of IL's most annoying buffs.   Combined attacks brought IL down to 22 hp by the end of turn 1, so he did not flip and played Galvanized.   Turn 2 everybody piled on and he was dead.    Victory before the 2nd environment turn, wow.   Fun fact, Legacy is not the nemisis of himself, apparently =p.

2nd Game vs IL was much closer owing to the fact that was unable to finish him in the same manner.   Next team was Wraith, AZ, X, and Haka.  However, once again, luck was with me and Zero got Fueled Freeze in his opening draw, stripping IL of all his toughest buffs.  It was looking pretty similar with IL at 22 hp at the end of turn 1,  however, at turn 2 I was only able to reduce him to 3 hp instead of death.   His Motivated by Desperaton (advanced) side kept him alive for quite a long time, and the game ended up being exceptionally close with all heroes in single digit hp, most less than 5.

I enjoyed dreamer much more than I expected.  Another close game.   As far as fun factor goes, I personally prefer IL>Dreamer>Kismet.  With Dreamer and IL being roughly equal, and Kismet lagging behind slightly.   La Capitain I've not broken out since playtesting, so no comment there.  With Kismet, I did have Fanatic's wrathful retribution finishing move get intercepted by a stupid shark (or in this case, an Abominable Snowman),  lol.   Only kept Kismet alive another turn or two though.

Environments are quite good, I've enjoyed playing on all of them.  Final Wasteland is pretty cool but I only played it once.   Fun fact,  ANY bouty card on Water Trough (silver gulch 1883) is hilarious.

Love playing CR and X.   Scholar I'm sorta lukewarm on but I'm sure there will be those that really enjoy him.  

I think Absoulte Zero is a hero that would require a lot of luck to be succeful against Iron Legacy.  Granted, I've only faced him once so far but my impression is that games against him will be quick, nasty affairs and heroes like AZ who require setup are going to have a hard time.

Omnitron X's base power is pretty incredible.  Especially when combined with someone like Unity it can be amazing to just throw out tons of golems. I can see how it could be dangerous as you may not want ever card played or trashed so it wouldnt work well with every hero. 

I played AB in Silver Gulch which was a nightmare.  Game took like 3 hours and I must have burned through the environment deck 3-4 times, ABs deck once, Unity's deck once, and The Scholar's deck once. Chrono Ranger went out pretty early but I look forward to playing him again. Scholar is a great tank and Omnitron X is just great all around. Great team support with some decent damage and tanking if he has the right plating. 

Especially with nemesis damage… Applies to Bunker too, probably.

Yes, well such is the reason I was using Elemental Wrath Zero.   Setup time?  What setup time?

Bunker: Engine of War would also be much better equipped to deal with IL than his F5 counterpart.  I feel F6 variants doing better against IL makes a certain amount of sense.  Although certainly some heroes might do better as their originals (Unity, possibly Wraith).

Played a game against Kismet, using Chrono Ranger, Dark Visionary and AZ Elemental Wraith in the Silver Gulch.  For a while, things went pretty well.  But then Kismet got out her ongoing (forget the name of the card) which caused the first damage dealt to her of every round to deal an enivronmet card and redirect the damage to it.  At that point, I was using deck controil via Visionary and the Talisman like a madman to get a card that would allow me to get rid of her ongoing, but I just couldn't come up with one.  I did manage to get one on top of Visionary's deck for draw the next round, but both she and Chrono Ranger were taken out before I could draw it.  At this point, AZ was still in great shape with 20 HP, but everything avalanched onto him.  He got nailed with 3, count them 3 jinx cards in one round and it was only a matter of time before he succumbed.

Our first game against Miss Information was with Unity, Om-X, Chrono Ranger and The Scholar. We ended up in a litteraly no target environment with three raptor bots out. If it weren't for the fact that the raptor bots could attack themselves we might have lost the game to them.

That would probably be a first. 

I watched as Plague Rat was first decimated by a giant mongolian death worm x 2 and a Yeti before finally being taken out by a skunk ape. I only wish it had been the sweet irony of death by a rat beast. The final wasteland is insane.  First, I am chased through the wasteland by monstrosities, then when I finally take refuge in the library and Con's bunker, Nightmist, the only remaining survivor, simply watches Plague Rat get devoured by the very future he created. Very thematic. 

I only play Sentinels with my gaming group, who meets on Saturdays, but we got three straight games in, all of 'em fun.

#1, if memory serves, was Iron Legacy vs. Argent Adept, Omnitron X, Tempest v.2 (me), and Team Leader Tachyon. It went pretty straightforward, I used Tempest to pop Iron Legacy's Ongoings repeatedly, and the others just wailed on 'im til he keeled over.

#2 was a little more complicated... The Matriarch vs. Argent Adept (me), Omnitron X, Team Leader Tachyon, and The Scholar. Thank God for the Scholar, 'cause first turn she pulled out almost every gawldamned one of her birds and shit got real. Every so often we managed to Hypersonic Assault her to force her to NOT do damage before clearing the birds with the Scholar, Omnitron X eventually got going really strong, and Tachyon blitzed her for about 50 or so damage in one turn to Kill it to the Face (tm).

#3 was the tightest game you can possibly play without completely dying... The Dreamer vs. Argent Adept (me again), Omnitron X, Fanatic, and I want to say The Scholar but I'm fuzzy on that... anyway, it went pretty smoothly - if painfully - up until we got her flipped. Then her Projections slowly chopped away at us until Fanatic keeled over... then Scholar... then Argent. Omnitron-X wound up being the last survivor to finally pop the last Projection on his turn and we won... with three incapacitated Heroes and Omnitron-X at 1 Hit Point. His last attack was exactly the amount of Hit Points needed to pop the last projection, too: 1 Hit Point, after Damage Reduction, and it had to be done twice - once on his turn, once on mine with Argent's flip power, to pop the Bear. Environment didn't kill anything on its last turn.

Yeah.

She was just a bit tougher than we initially thought. =p We did play her perfect, though: she didn't take a single point of damage all game.

I have to say I really like The Scholar. You can play him as a simple tank, but if you want you can get pretty interesting things done by using different combinations of the elemental forms. And there are a bunch of nice combo's you can pull of with other heroes. Nice balance between simplicity and (optional) complexity. I wonder if he can ever actually be incapacitated though :D

It does happen, usually due to lots of discard and destroy ongoing effects all at once. I'm looking at you Miss Information........

I played a game against MIss Information and felt she was a real pushover.  The problem was that she seemed to keep hitting the hero with the lowest HP, which for me was Drak Visionary.  Yes, this eventually led to her being incapacitated, but Chrono Ranger and Fanatic were barely getting touched.  By the time I defeated her, they both still had a little more than half their maximum HP.

Nice... so what do you guys think about Omnitron X?

I'm not gonna get to play for a week or two (maybe tomorrow though if I'm lucky) but he seems really powerful in terms of combos, damage, defense... the works. Kind of like a new Tempest. What do you think?

I'm really excited about The Scholar... I always wanted a proper tank and I love the way he kind of chills, sits back, and then every once in a while nukes something. Cant wait to play him.

Also I've been away for a while, working on my own projects, but this expansion inspired me to post some more alternate cards.

OX is a lot like AZ or Bunker in that it is very draw-dependent. It's tutor is pretty good, and it can get pretty insane if left alone (or if the right plating is out to prevent it from taking enough damage) with at least two different game-ending haymakers in addition to its normal array of small effects. Tempest is a good appriximation, although a little more fragile due to the reliance on equipment.

I like Omnitron-X quite a bit.  He is a little set-up reliant, to be fair, but between his fast-deployment options (Timeshift and Electro-Deployment Unit) and his Technological Advancement, he doesn't suffer as much from that as other heroes.  He probably needs a boost to be an amazing regular attacker, but then he's also got irreducible damage, so maybe not.  His broad range of support effects do indeed remind me of Tempest.  And even if he gets nothing to work with, Timeshift is so good anyway.

I played a game last night against Miss Information where he could not inflict damage, but he kept Golem Unity and her bots clinging to life, and spammed Bio-Engineering Beam to let Haka draw a ridiculous number of cards with double-Dominion.  It reminded me of the Argent Adept, except that Omnitron-X was also effectively immune to her damage.

I don't really like O-X as much as I expected to. It's a complexity 2 mostly because there will be so much going on near the end of the game, not because actually playing O-X is in any way tricky (or, in my opinion, fun. But my girlfriend really likes O-X, saying it really feels like you're a robot building yourself up to be more and more awesome): after 3 games baby omnitron seems pretty strong, but very, very straightforward. The most complicated thing seems to be deciding which plating to use. Omnitron X is still a time-traveling robot that is trying to destroy its past self though,  so big cool points bonus there :D 

I do really, really like the Scholar, and Chrono-Ranger as well, though he hasn't actually managed to shine in our games so far. But I love the bounty mechanic, and the pile-on-small-instances-of-damage thing.

I have played precisely one game with the new Shattered Timeline cards: The Scholar, Omnitron-X, Unity, and Chrono Ranger vs. La Capitan in the Time Cataclysm.

The thinking was that a nice, easy difficulty-2 villian would be a good way to sample the new content. It was a good game, but it was brutal. At the end of the villian’s first turn there were 7 crew out. The Scholar saved everyone’s bacon time and again (1 or 2 iron skins + Alchemical Redirection FTW) and even came back from the dead. Specifically, the environment card which makes everything else indestructible came out while Alcehmical Redirection was up. This was handy because it meant all the card destruction La Capitan’s forces were doing was pointless, and it meant all the self-destructing hero cards (The Scholar’s elemental cards, Omnitron’s Time Leap, Unity destroying equipment to bring out bots) could be kept around. The Scholar got knocked down to -5 health and was only “not dead” because of that environment card. Omnitron-X used it’s ability to play a card off the top of The Scholar’s deck that healed him back up to 2hp (a really lucky break) before the environment card self-destructed, taking several no-hp crew with it.

The “Unexpected Shopping Spree” anomaly was a real boon. La Capitan had just flipped with 7 cards underneath her, healing her and her 6 remaining crew back up to full. However, the constant rain of… luggage?.. whittled away her buffer of stolen cards as well as the HP of her crew, allowing the heroes to claw their way out of the hole they were in. Alcehmical Redirection + Iron Skin soaked all the damage dealt to the heroes, making the luggage hurt only the villians.

Anyway, Unity never really got off the ground and wound up incapacitated (that samurai and that viking make for nasty hero-killers), though her incapacited abilities were a real boon. Omnitron-X was able to hide behind The Scholar long enough to get built up and do a ton each turn. Eventually Chrono Ranger was able to use his “Bring 'em in Alive” bounty to put that darn pirate ship on the bottom of the villian deck, and then the team was able to slowly beat back the crew, then corner La Capitan herself. In the end, La Capitan had 3 bounties on her, so Chrono Ranger was doing 15+ damage a turn. She was finished off by The Scholar dropping all his elemental forms and using his “discard hand, blow stuff up” card to knock her down to 0 hp precisely.

It was a really good game and we won despite one incapacitation and two heroes getting down to 1hp (or less, in the case of The Scholar) at least twice. La Capitan’s very strong opening followed by a fair amount of sub-optimal play (we were still figuring out the new heroes) made it surprisingly tense. Good times. And I quite like all the new heroes, though Unity (who I realize is not new to Shattered Timelines, though she is new to my gaming group) will take some figuring out… time to read Flamethrower49’s guide to her again. And The Scholar was easily the table favorite and team savior, though both Omnitron-X and Chono Ranger had their break-out moments.

By the way, I’ve recognized most of the events being referenced in the Time Cataclysm deck (both from other cards as well as the comic) but I don’t get where the Shopping Spree card is coming from. Anyone care to enlighten me on that?

We figured Megalopolis during playtesting, mostly by a process of elimination. I suspect it's supposed to represent fighting in as mall where every time you move, you knock some shelf full of stuff down onto everybody.

it's also the worst place in the world if you're Chrono-Ranger getting your Hunter and Hunted on.

I'm trying to figure out where the Main Computer Room comes from. No other deck has its HP in a yellow circle quite like that (Ruins is close, but not quite – and obviously spoken for anyway). Must be a Vengeance preview.

main computer room will be from the vengeance expansion environment deck.

Notice that currently in the Freedom Four Anual the location Tachyon is currently trying to fight her way to is the Main Computer Room.

It's probably gonna be in Vengeance. If you look closely, you can see it's HP symbol resembles the shields of Baron Blade's Mobile Defense Platform, which is also where the art of the card is from, the inside of the MDP. So I'm guessing BB's MDP will be an environment.

What is really interesting if we`re looking at a cards looking for glimpses of the future - there is a card that it`s type is - cockroach... A villain or hero controlling these "things"? Even more postapocalyptic environment than final wastelands? The future is awaiting with most cute and likeable insect that exist in our world - isn`t this beautiful? Truly i am being sarcasting - i am afraid of this things :< And this is one thing i wasn't excepting - at all. No one does - propably. Unless someone really think this , this...  horror-thing is cute....

It's going to be interesting if Mobile Defense Platform will get it's own environment. Mainly against Baron Blade.

Baron Blade plays the Mobile Defense Platform!

Hero "Quick destroy the shield!"

Another Hero "Aren't we already inside? So why worry about the shielding?"

Permission to go high art for a second…

In the movie Audition, Takashi Miike employs a series of abrupt cuts which feel a little disorienting, but they add a sense of foreboding to some pretty mundane scenes. When things go bad, you get to see the missing scenes, where the movie was cut abruptly, and they show all the obvious signs that the protagonist chose to ignore. Stuff like the Cockroach, the Tumbleweed, etc… are like that… little glimpses of times and places that have been edited out and are revealed mid Cataclysm.

Either that or it is a bunch of cards on the hard drive that did not make the cut.

I'm pretty sure the cockroach is from Pike Industrial Complex (although the HP number is a different colour). And the tumbleweed is clearly from Silver Gulch.

Random things that amused me about this expansion include:

Several of The Dreamer's Projections have previously been pictured on Sentinels cards, including Dark Hero (Thokk!), Illusory Demon (Sacrosanct Martyr), Granite Oni (Hoist Chain), Treacherous Ape (Lightning Reflexes) and Macabre Spectre (Throat Jab). No sign of the Tooth Fairy, but I have hopes that we'll see Mainstay fighting a Whipacorn.

Absolute Zero gets his equipment destroyed (quite rationally, in my view) by Miss Information and suffers an Unlucky Break against Kismet. Not again indeed.

The Wraith's hairdryer is back, and clearly it's a big deal, because it's sabotaged by Miss Information and stolen by La Capitán.

The only person you desparately need to beat Iron Legacy is Engine Bunker. His ongoing destruction is vital and super-easy.

I am LOVING Omnitron-X. I never get to play as Chrono-Ranger since my friend has called permanent dibs on him, but I do love the look of him. I can't tell whether this is my new favorite expansion or not. I haven't played it to its fullest extent with these final drafts of decks. Spring Break has gotten in the way of me seeing my gaming group on a regular basis.

Really digging it. I'm really feeling the story of this expansion. I'm curious about the relationship between The Scholar and Expatriette. He seems to be her level-headed sage to contrast her bloodthristy recklessness. I'm drawing the connection from the similar titles of "Emmigrant's Song" and "Vagabond's Tale" in their flavor texts.

I played a gamed against the Dreamer with Visionary as one of my heroes and a question occured to me.  I'm sure this has been answered somewhere, but I can't find the answer.  How does the nemesis factor work here?  I was playing it that the projections were an extennsion of the Dreamer, therefore I added the +1 to the damage from the projections to the Visionary and vice versa.  Is that correct?  Or since the damage wasn't coming directly from or going directly to the Dreamer, does that not apply?

The Nemesis bonus only applies to The Dreamer herself, not her projections. Basically, it's pure disadvantage for The Visionary.

Nemesis damane only applies via the actual villain, so when the Dreamer flips and starts doing damage at the end of her turn, then she'd deal Nemesis damage to the Visionary. The projections deal damage themselves - it doesn't say that the Dreamer deals the damage, so I figure no Nemesis bonus applies.

We've played quite a few games now, and have fought every new villain and played in every new environment. We've also used every new hero multiple times. So…let me see, what can I say about them…

Chrono Ranger - Probably my favourite of the new heroes. He's so cool! His bounties are a really interesting mechanic and you can do so much stuff with them - I made great use of the "The Whole Gang" one to take out the Dreamer's projections when we fought her, for example. Him with damage bonuses (from Legacy, for example) make for some pretty savage damage when using the Compound Bow versus a target who's got both the "Ultimate Target" and erm…the other bounty where they take +1 damage from everything. In fact, even without damage buffs that bow and those two bounties make for nice hits :).

Omnitron-X - Good fun. Not so much if you can't get built up (eg if someone keeps breaking your stuff) but very cool if you can't draw/play cards since he gets to do so much in his Start phase once you've got a few Components out. But yeah, quite good 'cause of all the stuff you can do. The fact that Components can stack (ie they're not Limited) is pretty epic as well :D.

Scholar - Again, very cool. The whole "mass healing" thing is groovy so he stays alive for ages. Cards like Grace Under Fire and other mass-hitty stuff is cool as well. He's pretty good 'casue there's loads of stuff you can do, and loads of methods for doing it.

Dreamer - Interesting mechanic. We've only fought her once so far but it was quite good fun. As mentioned under Chrono Ranger, using the "Whole Gang" bounty really helped to demolish the projections two at a time :). We fought her in the Final Wasteland and the few times she was a target we just redirected the damage to someone (fortunately it was only ever one or two points and didn't happen very often). She didn't get hit once the entire fight and we didn't have major problems, really.

La Capitan - Stacked a couple of bounties on her (yes, I was Chrono Ranger again). The crew got wiped out pretty quickly after coming out. Can't remember who we fought this one with but basically we managed to take everything down fast enough that we didn't get killed or anything. In the final turn of the game, she stole enough stuff that she would have flipped on the following turn, but we managed to finish her off before then so that was okay :). Overall she's pretty fun and interesting to fight, but I can see how she could be a right pain in the arse if she managed to steal enough cards and whack you with loads of damage.

Kismet - She beat us :(. Found her kind of complicated what with all the stuff gong on - the Talisman, loads of jinxes and stuff all over the place. We probably didn't have the best team with which to fight her - we did have the Visionary (Dark version) but sadly Mental Divergence never came up so we couldn't get rid of any of the jinxes she piled on us. Probably need to give her another go and get more lucky than she did :P.

Iron Legacy - Heh. Okay, first game he beat us in about four rounds, lasting fifteen minutes, our shortest game ever. he did start with two copies of Galvanised in play though, the bastard, so that didn't help much :P. We fought him again later, with Legacy, Chrono Ranger, and Fanatic. He started with two copies of erm, the redirection card (when hit for 5+ damage it gets rediracted to the hero with the highest hp) and one copy of Galvanised. Fanatic, however, started with End of Days. So Legacy and me (Chrono Ranger) just drew twice in the first round while Fanatic laid down the destruction of two of those horrible Ongoings (obviously Galvanised is indestructible so not much we could do about that). Then basically we just laid down as much damage as we could over the next couple of turns (literally)…Inspiring Presence, Galvanise, and the Compound Bow (plus the odd smack from Fanatic and Legacy and pretty much all of Jim's one-shots) made short work of Iron Legacy and we won!!! Three rounds, ten minutes. Ahh yeah!

Miss Information - Another quite fun fight…in the first round she played the Isolated Hero clue, which I took upon myself (Scholar) and it stayed there for the whole game. The other two heroes were Legacy and Fanatic so while they were taking advantage of Legacy's buffs I sat there plinking away at her on occasion by myself. I never actually healed myself in the entire fight…but neither did I ever hit myself for buffed damage when we destroyed other Clue cards after she flipped (since I wasn't buffed by Legacy…so just took the straight damage). I got the killing blow with erm, Grace Under Fire, I think…the one where you discard your hand. Did about eleven-ish damage to her when she was in (I think) single figures. Good stuff!

Wheee, long post…I think I covered everyone. Okay there's Unity and Ambuscade, who're new to me, but not to most other people, I don't think. Ugh and it's gone 1am. Better head to bed soon, lol.

La Kapitan just buried me tonight. Soul crushing defeat, her and all her homies.  I obviously came with the wrong crew. 

Got 2 games in tonight, which is nice... I have not played much with my friends since we are always doing other stuff (MTG and 2 games I hope to publish this year).

Game #1 (Tom's choice) we played vs Mrs. Information in the Silver Gulch with Scholar (me), Chrono Ranger (Tom) and Hakka (John).

Honestly we got WAY too lucky... Mrs. Information seemed unable to play diversions for the most part, and with H-1 clues to flip her, well that happened soon. Of course me (Scholar) and John (Hakka) felt like we had an easy time and ended with high health, but honestly Tom (Chrono Ranger) did a lot of the work and got BEAT DOWN and was defeated before we took out Mrs. Information. I think it was an even fight (maybe we had some advantage) but under other circumstances we would have been crushed, as easily was Tom was. Also the enviroment posed very little thread, due to freak luck again, we did not see a single gun slinger, just cover, the sheriff and temporal cards.

Game #2 (Johns choice) we played La Capitan in the Maelstrom vs Omnitron X (Me), Tachyon (John) and Night Myst (Tom)

This was a perfect game... as in every one was super happy with the hero they played, the villain got in a few good combos and the enviroment was pretty well represented. I dont think we ever thought we would lose, but we felt challenged. I was able to do a lot of Control with my enviroment destroying ray as Omnitron, and got out my Ablative shielding early to block a lot of damage over the course of the game. Tachyon, did what you would expect... multiple draws and plays per turn with a few wonderful 14 damage barrages. Nightmist did some good control and was able to fully restore at some point, but Tom got lucky getting with lots of healing and preventing La Capitan from playing cards. The enviroment helped us a little with the Tendrils of Madness boosting some big attacks and La Capitans theft and crew made it a nice long game. Overal very satisfying, although I got a little lucky with OX and was able to build up a huge arsenal of cards in front of me for extra draws, damage, armor, counter attacks, healing, etc. Against another villain a proper nuke would have probably wiped all those tools away.

My review so far: It is fun to be busy and do a lot, but I liked being able to relax a little with The Scholar. Chrono Ranger is a constant damage machine but is overal a little fragile. Omnitron X is good at building up and once built up he is amazing, so very few downsides to him unless he fights a constant board wipe foe.

Mrs. Information is a super clever idea but a little luck driven, and very indirect. Those are not necesarily Cons, just the facts for better or worse. La Capitan is very even and her big damage prevention flip ads turns to the game without feeling like a slog. Nuking La Paraoja is a pretty big priority though, and each of her crew mates are surprisingly powerful under the right circumstances. I was glad nobody played Unity for example... that would have given the crew members A LOT of hero cards to destroy.

La Paradoja Magnifica is a very strong card. Extra card plays and effective immunity to deck stacking is a powerful combo.

I really dislike shuffling every turn though, it's annoying. We only shuffle when a crew member is in the trash, and if we would stack her deck we would shuffle it then too, but we don't because it would get shuffled anyway We have a similar policy with the Ennead (on of their flipside does it, I think).

A note on the villain mechanic of Visionary and Dreamer...

Those two don't match up. It's been stated time and time again that the villain and hero decks that share a nemesis factor are similar in play styles or are at least reflections of each other, like one is meant to counter the other. But Visionary and Dreamer don't really share that. Dreamer is all about sending out minions. She's closer to Unity than Visionary.

Sure, you could argue that the idea is to use the many copies of Twist the Ether and Wrest the Mind on the many projections, but I don't buy that connection. Something isn't right.

Besides, the damage aspect is completely one-sided. The Dreamer can do extra damage to Visionary, but it's totally taboo to hit Dreamer.

This doesn't add up. I don't think Dreamer is meant to be Visionary's real nemesis. I have always stuck by my Dark Visionary theory, and I still do. I think one day we're going to get Dark Visionary as her own villain and she will be the reflection of Visionary. Why else would we get that little tease in the bio of "Dark Visionary will help the heroes... for now."? They've been heavily pointing to her this whole time.

But we'll see. Who knows.

This might seem weird to most but I rarely enforce the nemesis rule for that reason, for me it sets up too many potential disparities. Yeah, I love that the game is kind of random and that crazy combos can happen, but the nemesis rule can push those way over the edge.

it has been stated that? I thought that it was just a story thing - I dont see how Expat and Dawn match up (Minion deck vrs rapid fire deck) or Ra and the Ennead math up in mechancis.... or Haka and Ambuscade... or or...

maybe im just dense :p

Dawn has lots of powerful citizens, while Expat uses lots of guns and ammo.

Ra deals massive amounts of damage. Ennead have lots of health for Ra to damage.

Haka can be used as a tank and a fairly good one at that and deals additional damage to the lowest. Ambuscade can become immune to damage and even deals damage to the lowest on his flip side.

Visionary and Dreamer are opposites just like Baron Blade and Legacy are opposites as well. Blade helps himself and only himself while Legacy helps out everyone. Visionary has high card control and little damage, while Dreamer has high damage and very little card control.

That's an interesting way to look at it, Ronway. I had totally forgotten that they are the opposite sometimes. I can see that being a potential argument, but I'm still not 100% satisfied with this pairing. It just doesn't feel quite right. I'm much more fond of the idea of the decks being similar, not opposite. But you're right about Baron Blade and Legacy, so that might be the answer. I'd accept that answer if that was the intention.

Similar subject: is anyone else a little wary of Chrono-Ranger's usefulness against Plague Rat? I haven't played them in the same match yet. And the deck similarity between them is very apparent, but the problem is the bounties aren't meant for a mostly single-target fight. Unless you're fighting somewhere like the Final Wasteland that provides a lot of targets, using the various bounties seems ineffective, since you'd just be stacking them all on Plague Rat. I know that opens up more power for Chrono-Ranger and his weapons, but still, he seems way more useful against villains like Citizen Dawn and La Capitan.

The nemesis is mostly their thematic counter, that is to say, that they are nemesis in the story. Ra and the Ennead are nemesis because they are all egyptian gods with a grudge against each other, but the ennead are mad because RA chose to be a hero (The Ennead are also the nemesis of each other, as is Anubis). Dawn and Expat are nemesis because they are mother and daughter. Dawn doesnt like expat because she has no powers, and expat hates Dawn because she disowned her and stole her eye. 

Visionary and the Dreamer are the same person. The dreamer is an alternate time line younger version of Visionary. I believe the difference here is that the gov't didnt continue to experiment/train the Visionary so when her powers erupted they put her into a coma and made her project everything. 

The way I play it, the nemesis rule is only in effect if the player using the hero wants it to be. I usually use it because half the reason I love this game so much is because the story and atmosphere is awesome and I like to keep in line with it. While I dont have my dreamer deck yet (the waiting for shipping is killing me), I would house rule the the Dreamers projections are part of the dreamer so visionaries nemesis rule applies to those (and only for that instance) because they are made by the dreamer and are not minions or artifacts. 

That's kind've how I saw it.  I think I will probably continue to play it that way as a house rule.

On the subject of bounties versus Plague Rat (haven't yet played these two off versus each other), you can get plenty of bonus from stacking all six bounties on one target...or anywhere else - it lets you deal six irreducible damage (or more, if you're buffed by, say, Legacy) to one target with the Masadah weapon. A nice revenge against someone whose main reason for being tough is the constant plinking away at the heroes with (mostly) irreducible damage. We had that situation earlier, against Gloomweaver. Yeah, he didn't really do very well in that game ;).

15 without outside buffs, actually.

The Masadah has a base of 6, but 2 of them give him an extra +1, plus an extra +1 for nemesis. Then, if he has Hunter and Hunted, that adds another 6.

Those two don't match up.

I've always thought that this was almost a self-invented thing by some on the forums.  While it's true that similarities or connections have been pointed out between the deck and play structure of nemeses, no one ever said it had to be that way.  Just that in some cases, it has been.

Christopher himself said a few times that the similar/reflections of nemesis decks is intentional and is actually a key part in making each deck, so this is definitely a real thing. It's not just a coincidence.

And yeah, I see the advantage of stacking up bounties for something like The Masadah, but it still makes bounties like No Executions and The Whole Gang essentially useless. They'll only be used as weapon buffs or ongoing destruction fodder, but that still makes them throw-away cards in this battle. Not saying it's a bad thing, it just makes Chrono-Ranger less tactic focused and more heavy attack focus.

Oh yes, I forgot about the addition of the bonus damage on those two bounties, and the Nemesis bonus. I'd probably only ever use Hunter and Hunted if it was a really urgent situation and someting had to die right now, especially if I had lodas of bounties in play…Chrono Ranger has only one way of healing himself (that bounty where he heals at the start of the turn…haven't learned every name with every effect yet) and it's not exactly at Scholarly levels of effectiveness, so I try to conserve his hp whilst plinking away at whatever I feel like :).

Let's see... The Dreamer must not be damaged, Visionary has cards that protect her from damage... Dreamer redirects environment damage, Visionary reduces environment damage. Dreamer plays with her trashed cards, Visionary plays with decks a lot.

No , really, the "rule" that nemesises have similar decks is a figment of imagination. Blade and Legacy are not very similar in play style. "Dawn has lot of minions, Expat lot of guns" is more a joke than anything else. "One is a woman with an army, the other is a One Woman Army" feels better :) . Argent Adept and Akash'bhuta have nothing in common.

Some pairing are really close - Like Omnitron and Omnitron-X, they even share the "component" keyword, for sometime strange effects (like Cosmic Omnitron flipping). Or Chrono/Rat, who are in the habit of putting cards of their deck on opponent targets.

Some pairing have "special" cards that feel like the center of their "good at fighting each other" combo, like Tachyon playing her sonic assault card against the Matriarch. Or Ra's immunity to fire versus the many fire cards in the Ennead's deck. Or Tempest "damage everything" vs Voss's "have many minions".

Some are mostly thematic, like AA/A'B, or the Dreamer/Visionary.  Or Haka/Ambuscade.

Or take Nighmist/Gloomweaver : one is "about" damage redirection, the other about making zombies and cursing people... They both use relics. The "central mechanism" of the magic value of cards is not even alluded to by Gloomy.

The "decks look alike" theory doesn't hold, in my opinion. It is, I think, more about having decks that can "match" on a tactical level, and give an advantage in some circumstances - like Tachyon playing "You can't deal damage and all your birds are dead !" and "No dear, because my cohorts reduce your damage to nothing!". Or Wraith controling Spite's Deck for rapid drug discovery or victim protection, among other little thing these two can do to each other. But it is, always, about theme and background more than mechanisms.

For Visionary, playing her Cocoon and trying to tank most damage seems the best thing to do, with controlling the decks for faster/easier projection cycling. Or taking advantage of her environment damage reduction power to help prtect the child. Or redirect Env/Villain damage for faster resolution.

I think it is how the Nemesis relationship informs the deck construction : the theme is first, then you build decks not to be similar, but in a way that give each opponent both weakness and tactical opportunities when fighting each other. Like Haka savage manaing the cloaking device, while sonic mines prevent a rampage. Or Legacy going all fisticuffs against Blade because this nemesis bonus is handy against damage reduction - and Blade doing the same. Or Tempest putting back spaceships in the deck while hit by "lowest HP" damage.

More a "this combo will work very well for these two" than "their decks have to reflect each other".

The central mechanism of both decks is hand size manipulation, and trading off cards in hand and hit points. Gloomweaver forces everyone to play the Nightmist game.

That's what I'm saying. I just don't think Visionary is necessarily the best built to fight Dreamer, and that's really the way it should be, at least I think.

Though this: Akash'Bhuta uses a lot of limbs and doesn't do very substantial damage, whereas Adept uses a lot of songs/instruments and doesn't do a lot of damage either. They're both "background" players.

How can this rule be "a figment of imagination" when the creator himself stated this was intentional? I can go digging for the quote if that will help.

Though I will admit there are a few I don't think match up very well. Blade and Legacy are the first that come to mind. Another would be Haka and Ambuscade, but that's one of those pairings when it's not similarities, it's that Haka can blow away Ambuscade with Savage Mana. I totally understand that not every pairing has or can have mechanic similarities. If they just have thematic similarities or powerful strategies against one another, I'm happy.

Everyone have a good St. Patrick's Day? Anyone spending today... recovering?

https://greaterthangames.com/comment/3390#comment-3390

Founf the link when it was first discovered that Nemesis do their best to reflect eachother.

As I pointed it abouve. If that doesn't do it for you Charged Attacks and Rampage both hit all targets, granted Ambuscade needs a lot of cards in play to be scary, Haka needs a lot of cards in hand.

Thank you, good sir.

But this reflection is not meant to be "perfect similarity". Take the example given of Mr Fixer/Chairman, for instance : "Mr Fixer is one man against the world. The Chairman is that world". So their decks are built with this thematic oppositions in mind, and sometime with mechanical similitudes  (redirection/retribution for instance, cards coming back from the trash, one man using tools, another using goons/underbosses as tools, etc).

Or Like Haka/Ambuscade : "natural" mystical warrior fighting for his tribe/land/values versus technological hunter for his own pleasure.

You could pair Haka to Voss, (rampage/savage mana versus ships who damage all/reinforcment), and many other heroes/villains. Or Tachyon to Ambuscade : Ambuscade needs a lot of cards in play to be scary, Tachyon needs a lot of cards in her trash, both can hit all targets.

Rather than "reflect each other", I feel it more like "evoke each other", or "have a meaning when taken as a pair".

The point is that for me, The Dreamer vs Visionary works well : uncontrolled psychic powers vs a hero who must control her powers - and the powers of the other.

Valid point. I'll take it. It would be pretty complicated to make each pairing have similar deck styles. That would probably cause some aspects to be sacrificed for the sake of gameplay.

I accept that thematic aspects are more important between the pairings than gameplay aspects. It's just nice if they cross over.

One thing I like about the Baron Blade versus Legacy matchup is that Baron Blade mixes up his damage types so as not to get caught by Next Evolution, but then frequently overkills so hard that he gets trumped by Superhuman Durability.

I agree, evandan55. And I, too, like the Blade/Legacy pairing, Katsue.

In fact, my favorite pairing are those really have you "feel" how much the hero and the villain are dangerous to each other. I was very happy to see how Plague Rat and Chrono Ranger matched - an infected Chrono Ranger can take "advantage" of the Plague Locus, risking a fast death for ever bigger damage on his ennemy... Just like Fanatic blindly hitting Apostate rather than his relics.

Blade and Legacy work this way, too, both being able to hit each other really hard - or to be "blocked" by the other's damage reduction. Legacy has great cards against Blade - but they all have him take great risks. Haka and Ambuscade, Spite and Wraith. With the Dreamer it is a little different, but is all about dangerousness to each other : she hurts Visionary a lot - but the problem is Visionary could hurt her a lot too, and has to restrain herself - you are afraid of playing her damage cards. I am used to play Visionary has a part time damage dealer (heretic!) so my first fight between the two was very fun for me :)

I should play a game with the F5/6 against Iron Legacy. It should satisfy this "fast mutual destruction" desire I now see inside of me.

I'm finding that Even if you have Freedom Six Bunker, you still cannot handle the massive damage that Iron Legacy can deal (particularly to his nemesies). What you really need I feel is Omnitron X, who can tank the stuffing out of IL while at the same time dealing damage that breaks through his possible massive damage reduction. Plus He's got massive ongoing destruction! Apparantly Iron Legacy doesn't like tranquilizers...

Playing End of Days in the first round may have helped during the fight in which we beat Iron Legacy (took out two of his three starting cards - the third was Galvanised). So far we've only fought him twice - hopefully we'll kick his arse a few more times in future :). I think the Adept could be pretty good against him as long as he can get at least one copy of Sarabande out ASAP. Which has a relatively small chance of happening, what with there being just two copies in the whole deck of forty cards. Still, you never know... :)

Honestly, I'd never go into an Iron Legacy fight without Engine Bunker. Omnitronks has those sedatives, yeah, but I find Engine Bunker more reliable since he's always got that power.

"Have a meaning when taken as a pair," is a fantastic way of looking at it.

Most nemesis matchups I feel like there are special interactions as well. Omitron + X are an extreme example, but I find I often have special strategies or things to look out for in nemesis matchups. Sometimes you bring this out with mechanical similarities, like the Fanatic/Apostate matchup, but sometimes the asymmetric pairing can bring out interesting strategies as well. Visionary has to rely heavily on her control abilities against Dreamer (including scouting the environment deck, which is usually a lower priority), and she can make fantastic use of Wrest the Mind to quickly wipe out projections. I mean, I do think that the theme is paramount in designing nemesis pairs, but even if there isn't parallelism there's usually something else cool about it mechanically.

I cant wait to see absolute zero's nemesis. 

You haven't even played it yet.  Trust me when I say that Chrono-Ranger is super-useful against the Rat.  He dies quickly, too, but since Chrono-Ranger's whole schtick is attacking a lot, he does more than his share of damage.

Engine Bunker may always have that power, but he does not always have Mode cards to discard to it.  :)  I find he dies to Iron Legacy just as well as everybody else.  But yeah, the best heroes against Iron Legacy have plenty of Ongoing removal.  Absolute Zero works well.  Fanatic, for End of Days.  Tempest and Omnitron-X, for their cards that destroy 2 ongoings.  Anybody else with it might be nice, they just have to draw it.

Exactly. Sure he has Iron Legacy and will have Proletariat in Vengeance, but I am really looking for the villian that is just his and he doesn't share with 5 other heroes or played with other villians that are nemesis with other heroes. Though i'm not sure how Vengeance will play, and it'll at least be nice to face someone that won't punish you (too bad at least) for being a nemesis.

Regarding the Legacy/Baron Blade - I always find they both can take a lot of damage. Where as Blade throws minions and platforms to distract you from hitting him. And the whole terralunar lazer you need to deal with. While legacy tanks the damage with his body. And it seems they both let others do their work for them most of the time.

Visionary and Dreamer I can see as Visionary has managed to control has mast and superior power while her younger self lacks control and instead has sporadic power surge of projections. Also to be fair isn't Dreamers deck all about controlling the damage on how to protect the dreamer, sort of contrasting the Cocoon where Visionary can tank all damage while Dreamer requires Heroes to tank it for her.

Side note: what does everyone feel about the new Lose conditions you can get from Silve Gulch? Still unsure of the reasoning behind the portal card that lets you discard to discard the top environment.

The feels to me like a timer. Ignore the environment, not enough things go in the trash and you lose. Thematically, the time portal is closing and you need to take care of business before it's gone. The discarding a card to discard the top environment is meant to represent a hero channeling energy to keep the portal open. It's a cost of missing other opportunities to buy the heroes more time.

Then again, if you discard (or play) too many cards you'll run out of cards to play and need to shuffle the deck…reducing the trash to zero…

You've got me there–I still haven't tried it. We will at some point soon, and I promise to come back with my thoughts.