Characters that scare me a bit.

I love Tachyon, she talks fast, she is scatterbrained and brilliant.  She is funny and light hearted and lives her life with a childlike joy.  I really dig that.

Team Leader Tachyon scares me, because that Tachyon has seen the world turn dark, and has failed to stop it.  That Tachyon is serious and driven and focused.

I don't even know how to process that character change.  I'm not a huge fan of the Iron Legacy timeline, simply because of what it has done to heroes like Tachyon.

Also Tempest.

He? lost everything, and yet we see him pictured as kind of cool and aloof and all about elements.  Then you look at Shackles, this is no Kal-El, this alien has vengeance in his heart.  He would be scary to see unleash on enemies, esp. given his crazy power level.

Who unnerves you a bit in the Multiverse?

The Cursed Acolyte, I see him everytime I look into the mirror. It freaks me out so much.

If I looked in the mirror and saw your face looking back it would scare me.

Unity is terrifying if I think about her too much.  All that power in the mind of an introverted child, who makes raptors as playmates and creates metal dolls to mock her human acquaintances in their own voice (see Swift Bot).  Just think how dark SHE could go in the face of an IL-esque level of world-shattering.  She'd be like Omnitron and Spite and a bit of Matriarch all rolled into one - an emotionally disturbed teenager with an army of destruction at her command, and the ability to bend reality itself to suit her whims (see Brainstorm).  Nightmare fuel, is what that is.

Unity an introvert? She seems pretty extroverted, actually.

I've always seen Unity as a bit crazy, on the verge of going very dark at any point, but a giddy dark. Kinda like Tiny Tina from Borderlands 2. She creates cute little toys that are very very deadly and finds glee in their effectiveness.

Spite.

I asked Christopher what he sounded like once, and he mentioned that his voice was like a soft-spoken Johnny Cash.  Its not always a voice that you trust... but its one that you listen too.  And sometimes thats all it takes.

One night (or day), things aren't going well and you find yourself alone.  You meet a man in a red mask who offers to help, to lead you home and keep you safe.  After all, he says, there are villains out there.  He's a hero- you've heard about them on the news, but this is the first time you've seen one in person.  That voice makes you feel safe...and he's kind and theres something about him that seems trustworthy.  

Maybe you decline, and thank him.  Until you realize (far, far too late) that he's following you.

Maybe you make it home, as he helps you carry your things and he talks to you about the city. Until he comes back, later.

Maybe he sees something and whisks you to the rooftops- telling you that he's got to keep you safe.  Until you find yourself dangling off a rooftop.

Maybe you are simply never seen again.

Thats why Spite is scary.  Because even in a world of superheroes, the bad guys don't always come out and say it.  

Until too late.

That is an awesomely scary thing, I like him more now.

That is a cool and creepy description, Braith, but somehow, I cannot really picture this guy passive-aggressively stalking victims.

(Also, y'all have some dark outlooks on Sentinels if you see a wisecracking teen hero and immediately think "incipient mental collapse".)

What do I find creepy?  A pan-dimensional police state that views heroes and villains alike as the enemy.  F.I.L.T.E.R. is much, much more threatening than Iron Legacy in my book.  Also, a bunch of psycho pirates (heh - no, not him) being able to better navigate the timestream than any of the beings with powers specifically meant for that.

But most of all: the anthropomorphic personification of the Earth is a goddess of destruction which perpetually tries to destroy humankind.  That is some deep existential horror, right there.

Huh.  And I just said the Unity thing was dark.

Ironic

Yeah, Unity is either hiding a special forces level of ruthless focus, crazy or is headed for a crisis the first time those Raptor Bots really finish off a villain.  They have Metal spikes in their mouths.

I've enjoyed that angle in our forum campaign, and she sure is happy getting to fight Omnitron now.

I love that angle on Spite.  He's a serisl killer, so he isn't quite the drug dealer gone mad that I had originally pictured him as.

Maybe he uses the drugs to try to up his prey level, he goes after the sidekick, then wants to take out the real thing.

Spite was a serial killer long before he took any drugs.  They just gave hima  new addiction and allowed him to go after more targets.

This is just my opinion, but I'm not really sure there is anything "passive aggressive" about my interpretation.  We've seen (in Good samaritan and the Little Girl) that Spite doesn't kill straightaway- and the fact that he's holding the Little Girl's hand was what led me to think in the first place that that part of his thing is getting people to trust him.  Stabbing himself in the neck with drugs, lab raids, and uncontrollable experimentation are definitely one facet of him.  But I strongly suspect that the horrific betrayal is another.  

I kind of wonder if he didn't offer Brave Thiago a chance to fight evil with him, side by side....  

I do have a pretty grim worldview, but it's not so much that I think Unity is likely to have a breakdown (if only because we know, canonically at least in the main timeline, that she dies before having a chance to break down).  Just that in the event that it DID happen, I think it'd be spectacular in its fearsomeness.

What do I find creepy?  A pan-dimensional police state that views heroes and villains alike as the enemy.  F.I.L.T.E.R. is much, much more threatening than Iron Legacy in my book.

With you on this one.  Maybe we'll get a villain deck for the psycho new leader of FILTER at some point - a sort of Sentinels take on Bolivar Trask or Grandon Creed, who comes in and takes a moderately nasty organization and kicks it up to 11.

But most of all: the anthropomorphic personification of the Earth is a goddess of destruction which perpetually tries to destroy humankind.  That is some deep existential horror, right there.

Oh yeah, definitely agree there.  And I could believe it was Truth in Television Gaming pretty easily…if such things as nature spirits do/did really exist, I figure they might have some of the same attitudes we hear in her quotes.

Plague Rat is the one who was originally a drug dealer actually.  Spite is just a convict who got used as (ironically) a lab rat for Pike Industries, and happened to roll "jackpot" on the save-or-die.

Thank you… thank you…

Fanatic unnerves me a bit, but it is probably mostly undeserved. She's just... very driven. and blows things up with magic.

Other than that... Visionary defintely. I have a long-standing belief "don't trust psychics" Any one with the power to bend people to their will seems almost inevitably to misuse that power.

I mentioned to Foote the other day that the Swiftbot quote "I am uptight about science and hate explosions in the lab."  is an excellent homage to the origin story of The Silver Age Flash (Barry Allen). 

I found that very interesting! Great catch there.

Fanatic scares me quite a bit.  She...would not like me at all.  Sure, she's a good guy, but she wouldn't mind introducing this atheist to Absolution the hard way.

Out of the villains, Spite is the worst.  Plague Rat is just an animal, you can't blame him entirely for what he's become.  Baron's crazy but incompetant.  Matriarch is small time.  The Chairman I can understand, he's out for himself, you might even be able to make a deal with him.  Iron Legacy is driven but has some sense of honor (twisted as it might be).  Voss is doing his duty.  The Ennead are beyond human morality.

Spite LIKES what he does.  He embraces his foulness and wants for one thing and one thing only...your degredation and pain.

Also, as someone who frequently suffers from night terrors and similar sleep disturbances, The Dreamer scares me as well.  I know what I can do while sleeping, and I'm not a child with psychokinetic abilities.

Matriarch is small time... for now.

https://greaterthangames.com/forum/topic/footenotes-the-matriarch-and-the-red-herring-4239

I don't get this from her, I don't think she cares about other's faith, her quest to destroy evil seems very personal and not based on conversion at all.  Now if you get labelled as evil through a misunderstanding or mistaken identity she'd be scary, she doesn't seem likely to verify her target before smiting.

Essentially true, but debatably mis-stated.  Christopher has implied that she's tapped into a HUGE source of power, so while she herself is peanuts, she might be packing some very heavy artillery that forces her to be taken somewhat seriously.  She's definitely an example of the various tropes whereby a cartoon black hat is usually their own worst enemy, so I agree she's not scary, I'm just not thinking "small time" is quite the way to put it.

Voss is doing his duty.

False.  Voss staged a one-man coup against his own government; he's a conqueror, plain and simple.  By the standards of other Thorathians (apart from Vyktor and Tamar et al, who are his own hand-picked cronies), he's a war criminal at best; he was exiled for his initial crimes, because they couldn't stand to kill him due to his noble blood, and his thanks was to take the whole place over.

I'm not disagreeing with Spite as being scarier than Voss, just being clear that Voss is definitely no mere soldier.  He's basically Space Hitler, and Hitler really is far less frightening than, say, Jeffrey Dahmer…but racked up a much more impressive body count, even if it was in more underwhelming ways.

Not to mention Voss' entire schtick is finding peaceful races and genetically re-engineering them so they are FORCED to join his conquering army. What do you think "Genebound" means, anyway? Go through and read all of his flavor text some time.

Makes you wonder what the heck he's doing on Earth…

Voss is more Roman in my view, go capture a land, enslave its people, and make them fight the next target.

Voss is Ceaser, they try to send him off to get rid of him, so he returns and takes over, then fields his army to go conquer everything.

Maybe Tempest's escape irked him, and he's followed him to finish the job?

I don't think Voss is really finding Peaceful races per se, but he does like good genetic stock. He's like the Borg that way. Perhaps he finds something in us that he wants to use!

I think humans are the first race that have different genders since he started his adventure.

He plans to weaponize our breeding capacity.  Just think of it, there are 3 billion human females on Earth.  He turns all but the top 1% of genetic fitness males into cannon fodder, then starts getting the 1%s to stud all the females with mechanical precision, cranking out a new crop of probably ten billion young within nine months.  It's probably within Thorathian technology to force-mature these at least to early adolescence in a short space of time, and then the cycle can repeat.  What other organism in the cosmos could have evolved such incredible, viruslike powers of propagation?

Rabbits?

Yes, which are from Earth.  As are viruses for that matter.  It's entirely possible that in the rest of the cosmos, life reproduces at a far more glacial pace.  Perhaps Thorathians have a mating season, prolonged gestation, and exclusively single birth.  Why would Voss need to collect planet after planet worth of soldiers, if he could find billions on just one planet?  I think Terrestrial life must be unusual in its fecundity.  Perhaps due to Akash'Bhuta's influence?

Another reason he uses different races is due to their differing biological/physiological abilities - if he's invading a volcanic world, he'll probably send in the immune-to-fire troops, for example, while the Frosthounds can take on the colder climates, and so on. Humans are physically pretty crap compared to most other species unless we're geared up with a load of equipment and stuff. Opposable thumbs, long-distance vision (even though it's not as fine-tuned as, say, a bird of prey), and a large cortex, that's about all we've got going for us if you take away our stuff.

Hence, rabbits. Gene-Bound Bunnies would be fearsome creatures indeed...

Enough with the Rabbits, I just soiled my armor I was so scared.

At least they are better then rabbits that have lost a bee.

Those are the worst.

Humans are a lot nastier creatures than we give ourselves credit for.  We've come to dominate this planet's ecosystem, not because we were smart enough to build high technology (that wouldn't happen until the relative late autumn of our species's lifespan), but because we had an ecological niche that we were extremely good at fitting into.  Put simply, our primitive ancestors were some of the most effective hunters in the Sahara because they were built for walking.  They could pursue a fleeing antelope or something for days, exhausting it through sheer persistence.  A lion or the like might be deadlier in the short term, but lacked the endurance to sustain a pursuit, and its mere presence would scatter its prey in every direction, so it would have a very short window of time to try and catch one of the fleeing animals before they were all too far away, or otherwise it could never hope to keep up with them.  We, however, could.  Combine that with the intelligence to plan tactics and the ability to communicate, and we were pretty terrifying as compared to lions, just not on a one-for-one basis.  Remember that in any ecology, predator species tend to be outnumbered by their prey about 97-to-3, but humanity isn't a "predator" by this reckoning...more like an ant colony, omnivorous and opportunistic, using numbers to strip an entire environment of everything it can consume.  I can definitely believe that we'd be worth something to Voss.

There was an article I read, I believe it was on cracked.com, where they had a list of the 10 most terrifying ancient creatures or something like that. Other than being monstrous, ridiculous engines of destruction most of them had one other thing in common. Hunted to extiction by early humanity.

One theory of the reason we massacred… just about everything, other than our ability to plan ahead, is the fact that we spend so long as helpless babies. The theory goes that with the extremely long time we spend dependant to other members of our community it gave us teamwork unrivaled at the time, because we learned how things worked and that we were supposed to care about our "fellow man" (this did not apply to neaderthals, we killed just about all of them). Our empathy made us the most terrifying force in the ancient world. Ah, caring…

Voss is defeated by Legacy who is currently being powered by the smiles, songs, and laughter of children. The singing children demoralize all of Voss's army who give up on the dumb invasion plan and decide to play tetherball instead.

So a different look at Omnitron-X would be that upon acquiring Empathy, he realized the power of it, and changed sides knowing he could not win with Omnitron, since the Empathy level wasn't high enough.

Omni-10 wasn't with Omnitron - he is Omnitron. There was no Omnitron to team up with in his own timeline because he was the only individual of that name. The time travel bit came in when he activated his empathy programming and went "omg I've been killing people and that's bad - I must stop myself from ever becoming such a monster", at which point he returned to his point of origin, or thereabouts, and started helping the other heroes kick his own arse before he could set about Destroying All Humans ;).

Wow.  I always read that as him "Rebuilding himself" being Omnitron building a second version of himself that would fight with Omnitron and unlock the secret power of teamwork.

Giving himself Empathy and humanoid form so he could empathize with humans and thus destroy them is not nearly as awesome (in my opinion)

His nemesis symbol only really applies to Omnitron.  In the end the only true enemy a robot bent on the annihilation of humanity had was himself, and his need to eradicate his makers.  The futility led him to recreate himself in their image, and join them, thus undoing himself.

sigh. . . 

Wouldn't Omnitron recognize his future self if they fought?  you'd think that would alter the timeline somehow.

Also, seriously, a giant weapons factory able to churn out a sea of automatons cannot create a decent second version of himself, so maybe even he doesn't know what code caused him to gain sentience.

Which could mean that code isn't just code, but is somehow more than itself, maybe Omnitron was a creation of something else, not just an error, such that the situation is not repreatable.

He DOES recognize himself. That's why Gaussian Coil Blaster's flavor text is "Damage sustained. Origin IMPOSSIBLE." Not unknown, impossible.

Sentinels of the Multiverse seems to have a branching timeline. So Omnitron has recognized Omnitron-X is him from the future, so will not install the empathy chip in the future (if this omni makes it that far along), but that would not effect the timeline in which Omnitron does make the empathy chip and goes back into time. So basically there are two timelines, one which has Omnitron-X going back in time and the other does not.

Another example of this is Visionary going back into time to prevent the Iron Legacy future. Her initial timeline didn't have another Vanessa Long (we know this because Vanessa was still an experiment), but we know the timeline still exist because Iron Legacy makes his appearance in the same timeline Visionary goes back to.

Another series that has the same branching of timelines is Dragonball.

I particularly like Omni-X's incap side. Omnitron proper has some great flavor text that, I assume, are references to the Mass Effect series. "Assuming Direct Control" is the warcry of the Collector General from Mass Effect 2 taking full mental control of one of his pawns on the battle field. This is kinda whats happening on his incap side I think. It is possible that after the cosmic tampering that gave new life to Omnitron, it's upgraded powers were enough to bring Omni-X back into the fold. The details of all that are guessed, but the end result is known.

Man, if someone were to get their hands on that decomissioned Omni-X frame (with all its future technology the core hardware is probably valuable well beyond anything avaliable during the main timeline), I imagine it would be pretty frightening 

Agreed, in general, but I assumed Omnitron doesn't actually know why OX turned on him, doesn't know about the empathy chip…

Probably at first, but the incap side of Omnitron-X has him reassimilated. So Omnitron probably messed with the programming and found it in there.

Maybe Omnitron-X realized that the only way to defeat current Omnitron was to momentarily disable the empathy chip and then let himself be reassimilated with the empathy chip set to activate during reboot... thus ensuring that Omnitron would create Omnitron-X

Is Omni-X really that smart though? After all he did install an empathy chip without knowing what it would do to him.

Edit: Sounds a lot like a toddler shoving things into their nose.

Question:

Do we have any clues as to where in this process Cosmitron takes place?  It is still the original size and general form?  I am wondering if Cosmitron is closer to X or earlier, because Omnitron-X could be way off from this cosmic meddler's intent, or very much a part of it.

Also, that incap side was one of the reasons I thought X was a creation of Omni, not a reforming of Omnitron itself.  Seeing Omnitron enslave himself is interesting, it would have bizarre consequences for Omnitron and the future if that happened.  I mean that whole getting a hold of future technology would be pretty instant if Omni assimilated X.

This makes me wonder again about the nature of time travel in the multiverse.  Do Omni-X and Chrono travel time because of the timelines shattering, and Visionary, did she make use of the shattering or did she create it by starting the time travel mess.  Part of me thinks Visionary travelling back created instability and cracks in time, that allow others to travel through time, and it all leads to the timelines shattering, and when/if time is repaired there will not be any more time travel.

Idea to add into a future storyline:  Cosmitron is created with the expressed purpose of capturing Omnitron-X, and the horror that would unleash upon the past.  Would make an interesting remake of that particular story, though I doubt canon is anywhere close to that.

I would think Cosmic Omnitron would be closer to Omnitron. As his creation is what gave Parse her powers. Omnitron-X is 100 years in the future, most characters we know now would be long dead or super old…

Forgot about that part in Parse's Bio, yeah it would be very early, possible Omnitron II.

Cosmitron may not have ever existed in the timeline that Omni-X comes from. These cosmic and temporal events seems to be isolated within timelines and not a fixed point event that occurs in every multiverse. 

Omni-X would be more than aware of every possible trick his ealier forms could pull on himself. Omni-X is 100 years more advanced than our Omnitron, I do not think it would be exactly easy to devour Omni-X back into the fold. 

Cosmitron likely blindsided Omni-X in a sense. This was not something he had been programmed to deal with, nor was it something that ever happened to him in his own timeline. The future looks really bleak for our timetraveling empathy bot. I doubt his worst days are behind him...

He seems to have given up a lot of his power on his 10th version, he's small, doesn't build drones anymore and his weaponry is not as powerful.

In a head to head fight X is clearly no match for his original self.  That humanoid form is rather restricting.  If he is captured the technology would not be nearly as valuable as the knowledge he held of all the fights Omnitron would lose in the future, who he faced and what powers they had.

Cosmitron should be the main timeline, as it was pre Shattered Timelines.  Omnitron-X could be a specific timeline in creation, but it wouldn't be restricted to that timeline, as it is travelling timelines.

Presumably Omnitron-X had to severely restrict itself in order to be able to jump back in time.

In terms of which version is more powerful, do consider that Omnitron is a difficulty 1 villain, whereas Omnitron X is often considered one of the most powerful heroes in the game.

Yeah, but try soloing Omnitron as Omnitron-X, it doesn't go well.

Omnitron-X playstyle fits his story well, as he is a tough hero, but he's so great because of his ability to really jump start his allies.

Soloing anybody against anybody doesn't go too well. I will admit I regularly cringe in Omni-X vs. Omni battles in anticipation of Technological singularity.

That is mechanically within the game. There's no reason to believe that game mechanics is an actual representation of the power a character holds.

There is no other point of reference for hero or villain power levels than the game.  How else should we judge their power?

Also, seriously, Omnitron pumps out a serious amount of weaponry and Drones, Omnitron-X has good shielding, weaker weapons and no drones at all.  His advantages are time travel and Empathy.

I find it likely that that sacrifice was made because Omnitron became convinced that Empathy was more powerful than his drones and heavier firepower.  The X experiment took a chance on a different size shape and programming.

Is the Chairman more powerful than Omnitron then? If we're going by game mechanics to determine the power of a particular villain than the Chairman is more powerful than Voss, Omnitron and arguably even Iron Legacy. The Chairman's difficulty in mechanics is determined partly by his physical prowess, but mostly by the fact that he has such a large and intricate empire that simply getting to him and making him vulnerable is an epic battle in it of itself.

There are several things that Omni-X can do that Omni classic can not. Omni-X can do irreducible damage, heal his allies and not just himself, manipulate time around him to benefit himself or others, protect himself from multiple damage types instead of just one at a time.

Also, as I said earlier, there aren't really any heroes that can stand up to a villain one on one. Does this mean that the villains are inherently more powerful, not necessarily.

Heroes aren't mean to function by themselves in this game, it's just not how it's built, but there is a huge jump in Omni's effectiveness from villain to hero. As a villain, he is sometimes a big challenge given the makeup of your team and what cards he gets out, but most of the time, he's not much of a threat. When he becomes a hero though, he is almost always a valuable asset to his team and helps ensure victory.

We really have no way of judging the power level between heroes and villains. However we do know several of the heroes have their own comic line, I really don't see every one of those issues always having 3 to 5 heroes working together to defeat a villain. Legacy has totally thwarted Baron Blade's plans without the the help of other heroes. Argent has probably even sent Akash'Bhuta packing on his own.

Do we know that the loss of drones is between 9 and 10? Or the size change? To me, the biggest question is what was version 9 like? It could already be very different than 1. Maybe it already stopped making drones earlier, because the common way to bit it was to severe the link. Maybe it already became smaller, because it was to big of a target, or it needed the humanoid shape for ease of mobility. Maybe the Empathy chip was an attempt at camouflage into human society. Maybe Omnitron was trying to become a cylon. Maybe 9 was Con, and Omnitron already moved from robos to human drones.

Is Baron Blade more powerful than Legacy?

Because in different lines he has killed three of them, and he is the reason Legacy forms the Freedom Four, because Legacy can't beat him alone.

So yeah, Baron Blade is more powerful than Legacy.

The Chairman's power isn't just what he himself can do, but also the full weight of his organization which includes informants, thieves, probably lawyers and politicians, he's more powerful than Omnitron, mostly because it is pretty easy to see Omnitron coming.

Not more powerful than Iron Legacy, but harder to fight, Iron Legacy will come right at you himself, the challenge is beating him.  Chairman brings the full weight of a secret society/criminal organization at you, it's a nasty fight just getting to him.  And he and the Operative are super human.  Just no where near as super as Iron Legacy.

There is also the factor that it is much easier to destroy than to protect.  Take Iron Legacy vs. Legacy, Iron Legacy isn't worried about killing the person he's fighting, Legacy tried to take people alive.  Iron Legacy doesn't care what you are trying to do, he comes right at you, Legacy tries to stop villains plans then stop them.  Most importantly collateral damage:  Iron Legacy doesn't card if Joe the innocent bystander dies because he threw Bunker into him, the heroes are being careful not to harm innocents, there are punches being pulled.  So in a vacuum he might not be greatly more powerful than his former self, but he is, because his resources are greater, and he isn't stopping himself from hurting people.

Maybe if we changed the term to more effective than more powerful people would be Okay with it?

It also doesn't look like we will ever get a different take on Sentinels than co-op games, snd if that is the case don't we at some point have to assume that that is how the Multiverse works?  We have a game, a not out yet game, and a comic that show that it takes a team of heroes to defeat even an intro villain, we have nothing at all that says otherwise.  I think it is pretty rational to treat the Multiverse as if the way it is portrayed to us is the way it is intended.

In the Iron Legacy timeline, does Legacy end up killing Baron Blade by himself in a fit of rage?

Yeah, Iron Legacy is more powerful than Baron Blade.

Baron Blade didn't even have time to write a note to past self telling him to kill The dad first.

Er, Tactics is competitive isn't it?

Not completley. It's semi co-op. Team of players vs another player(s). SotM and GSF are true Co-ops in that it is 100% Player vs the games card-based AI.

Is Vengeance Blade weaker that regular or Mad Bomber Blade then? Because those Blades could fight the Freedom team by themselves, whereas Vengeance Blade requires a team with him.

My basic understanding is that the battles we fight in the game are adaptations of battles that happened in the universe of the multiverse. Sometimes a villain's scheme requires a team to foil, sometimes it doesn't. Superman doesn't always need the Justice League to defeat Brainiac or Lex Luthor. It really varies with each issue and the story being told.

Sentinels of the Multiverse is a game first and a story second. None of the heroes can take on a villain alone because that's not how the game is designed.

To an extent, I can agree with the basic argument. In order for villains to be threats they generally have to be at least the same level of power that the hero is at, but in a long running story heroes and villains change overtime and a villain that may have taken everyone to defeat the first time he was introduced may not be so difficult the second time he comes around because the heroes understand how he works and how to defeat him.

Well, on his own he's probably weaker; he hasn't riddled the city with bombs, and he isn't pulling the moon into the earth. He does, however, have a team to back him up, making him a considerable force.

No no no. He is stronger individually now story wise. He perfected that serum he injected into himself remember. Physically he might almost rival legacy, but that's conjecture. 

He's physically stronger, yes, but on his own you could probably solo him.

The original point was whether or not mechanics reflected the actual power difference between heroes and villains. Mechanically, yes, Vengeance Blade is probably weaker and you may be able to solo him, but the point is that he's supposed to be stronger and more dangerous than his earlier incarnations, but mechanically it clearly seems that he's not.

So, I guess that answers the question, doesn't it?

The first two fights the heroes are going after him.  Getting through his defenses to stop the Impulsion Beam, and then surviving his attempt to kill you.

The second time he's blowing up the city and you are trying to stop him.

Now Blade is coming after the heroes with his own villains.  It's a far different situation when you can run away, or somewhat dictate the terms of the fight.

When you have limited time to stop Blade from destroying the Earth that isn't the case.  I personally love when you get Blade's damage cards out and you have to just take the beating because you can't afford to deviate from the main objective.

I'm not sure how much the heroes are able to dictate the terms of the fight or even run away given that one of the environments is the Freedom Tower. Baron Blade didn't become less intelligent with his serum and probably has lots of gadgets and devices to limit the heroes' effectiveness. In the Vengeance story arc he may have even come up with a long intricate plan on how to kill the heroes rather than just going, "Now we all attack at once, hit whoever you feel like."

The point is that Vengeance Blade does not seem to be less powerful or dangerous than Regular or Mad Bomber Blade despite not actually being able to fight the heroes on his own.

One of the statements was that sometimes it's not about how powerful the VILLAIN is, but how difficult their PLAN is to overcome. So while pretty much everything you said is absolutely true, something to take into consideration is that having teammates is PART OF THE PLAN. You can't take them out, or rob him of essential pieces of his strategy.

The point was that upon initial inspection of the mechanical difference between Vengeance Blade and Baron Blade, that Vengeance Blade would appear to be weaker than his earlier incarnations because of a reliance on a team. I didn't say that that's what I actually thought. My point was that mechanics can be a bit misleading when trying to compare a villain's power to a hero's and vice versa. V

engeance Blade is supposed to be a bigger, badder version of Baron Blade who is attempting his most fiendish plan of defeating the Freedom Five yet by coming up with a team of his own. Even if you could solo the deck on your own, that is not an accurate way to compare the power difference between the the incarnations.

Original Blade is a difficulty 1 Villain...pretty wimpy overall.  I'm guessing that the Vengeful Five are a diff 4 all together, which means that individually they might amount to 0.8 difficulty each...but I don't know how they operate, it's entirely possible that they function enough like The Ennead (ie the team overall plays one card per turn, regardless of how many members are standing) that VengeBlade alone could still be a 4 even after his allies have fallen.  So I don't find it too hard to believe that he could be more powerful in the game, to reflect being more powerful in the story.  (Although a lot of his story power comes from his devices, which may not be portable enough to come with him when the VF attacks.)

Let's take ambuscade.

The weakest Villain in the game (maybe not rating wise, but he almost never wins, and rarely is a real threat), he would annihilate most heroes 1v1.

Why?

look at his deck.  Ambuscade isn't on the run, or getting ambushed, he is hunting you.  He can turn invisible and hunt you while you can't retaliate.  Ambuscade isn't out there every day fighting good guys, he is setting up so that when he does strike it is a big deal.

That's why he's more powerful than Legacy when they fight, because Legacy wasn't sitting around for months gathering intel and tracking behavior patterns, he was busy doing other stuff.  On the average Monday morning Legacy is way more powerful than Ambuscade, but when they actually fight it is a different story, and if Ambuscade could get the jump on an isolated Legacy he would likely win.  Sadly for him that team is always near enough to help.

Vengeance Blade is personally more powerful, he may be using a team, but he didn't go alone before either.

Original Blade brings Mobile Defense platforms, turrets, serums, defense shields, force fields and Blade Battalions to fight the heroes.  The second fight he brings a death ray and a ton of bombs that he is hiding all over the place.

Now he is bringing a team of super powered people with him.

It's a new mechanic, but it isn't like he was going 1v4 before now.  It is probably his most powerful form, since the other team members are likely stronger than blade battalions and turrets.  I am very curious to see if he brings some gadgets with him or if he tries to go mano y mano.

I doubt that Blade's deck will just be him; even with the super serum, that's just not his style. If I'm right, then mechanically he will be weaker than normal BB, despite being super strong and just as prepped.

Trying to extrapolate a particular villains "comic" strength from their "mechanical" difficulty is a pretty silly fools errand in its entirety. It flat out doesn't work that way. Apples/Oranges. Not a fair comparison. By that logic, we could argue say that DW Fixer is physically stronger than Legacy. Sounds like a pretty silly argument to me. 

I don't grasp this.

Unless you are going for the strength is damage angle, which isn't at all where I am going.

I am not at all purporting that you can tell the intended strength of a character by trying to apply a damage to physical force type of argument.

I am saying that the game in a general sense mimics the imaginary comics that they come from.  That things heroes do in game correlate to how that hero or villain would act in a comic.  I mean we can pretty well assume that Expatriette doesn't boost her allies, and that Argent Adept isn't tanking.

Further that the general effectiveness of that hero would be an approximation of their effectiveness in a comic.  Legacy is one of the best heroes in the game, I don't think that is a total accident.  I give credit for that to the designers, they made their heroes feel like comic book heroes, they made some heroes work better together than others, and some villains or environments harder or easier for different heroes.

Some of that may be unintentional, but I think it is far more intentional than accidental.

This game isn't covering solo storylines.  We don't play months of investigation Wraith puts into solving crimes, we don't play Chrono travelling to Hoboken to eliminate a wierd mutant lizard thing, or Haka trying to protect wildlife from Ambuscade's hunting trips.  We play the big conflicts, and the main storylines.

In that context I think it is perfectly reasonable to assume a decent amount of correlation between in-game power and comic-verse power.

It is ultimatley an Apples/Oranges comparison. Regardless of how close making that comparison might get you to the reality of the comic vs game power scale, its still a fundamentally flawed extrapolation. Its fun to think about, and the arguments put forth are no less creative and thoughtful for it, but I'm not about to agree that its a sound argument.

Argent Adept actually makes a very effective tank. A DR of one and regaining four hit points a round. He do do that, while allowing a card draw/play or deal a point of sonic damage.

I meant more that he couldn't take damage for other people, he can keep himself alive, I probably should have written that differently.

If we follow that you cannot extrapolate from the card game to comics, then the only knowledge we have of these characters is from The Annual that is posted on the Website.  That is the entire extent of "Comic Book" they exist in.

Surely you can see the difference between extrapolating art and flavor text (you know, things that are actually directly "lifted" from these imaginary comics) and extrapolating relative power scales from the limited mechanics and scope of a structured card game. I believe you can do better.

He is also not being a primary damage dealer, usually. his 30 damage if you go completely balls out is nothing compared to the triple digit scored DEDICATED damage dealers (huzzah alliteration!) like Chrono and ExPat can rack up.

I really think you are selling the game design short Foote.

Card effects show us how heroes fight, and how heroes interact with teammates, they show off hero abilities.  Even if you could gleam the same insights from art and text it doesn't negate the design of the character as being informative of the character.

You shouldn't look exclusively at game mechanics, but you shouldn't exclude them either.

Seriously, outside of game mechanics these characters exist as flavor text, a bio and some art.  You learn a lot more about the Wraith playing her deck than you would if you looked at all the art and flavor text but never looked at the card text or played her.

If we cannot utilize the only purposeful existence of these characters to analyze them, then we can't analyze them in this manner at all.  I mean really, should we just say "Well, we have no clue what they are like in the comics so we can't know who is more powerful than anyone else."

What way other than Game mechanics are we to know if Akash' is more or less of a threat to the heroes than Iron Legacy?  Should we just never debate this at all?

I'd like to think that >G designed these characters to be like themselves, and didn't just throw cards together and say, "uh, let's make this deck the Wraith."

True that card effects show us how a hero does things, but a hero never hits a villain and says 'I just hit you for 2 points of damage'.

Comic Books are, first and formost, a story - if the story would  be better told for having the hero fail to hit, he's going to fail to hit. That is not in the 'I play Thokk and hit you for 2 damage' that the card says. Legacy may be about to Thokk Blade into oblivion, but the story says that blade dodges and kills Young Legacy instead. Story triumphs over 'mechanics' that we play with.

The original idea that spurred this argument was the idea was Omni-X was much less powerful than Omni classic because he can't fight Omni classic on his own. I think to an extent that this is a flawed perception. If we can say that part of Vengeance Blade's strength comes from his ability to utilize his team and utilizing his team doesn't make him physically weaker, than can't we say the same for Omni-X.

He doesn't have drones because he doesn't need them. Other heroes are much more effective than drones will ever be. On the surface it may seem that Omni-X is weaker because his effects aren't as large or as immediately devastating than his earlier counterpart. Terraforming destroys all environment cards in play and gets Omni a free number of plays equal to the cards he destroyed, whereas Bioengineering Beam can destroy only one environment card at a time. The power of Terraforming is completely dependant on the number of environment cards in play, and most of the time, he's only going to get one or two extra cards. Most of the time Terraforming doesn't give him that much of an advantage and can actually help the heroes by getting rid of nasty environment cards. Bio Engineering Beam I would say is much more useful because once it's out it can be used every turn. Omni-X does a much better job of molding the environment to his needs than Omni classic.

Let's also look at the components. Disintegration Ray and Magnetic Railgun do a lot more damage than Focused plasma cannon, but saying they're more effective is a bit flawed given how easy it is to destroy Omni classics components. You only have to do seven damage in a round to Omni to destroy all of his components and his only means of armor outside of advanced is Adaptive Plating which does not at all protect his components if the team he's fighting uses multiple damage types. Omni-X's components only take five damage before they're gone, but five damage in a single turn is a lot harder to do than an entire round. Also, Omni-X's plating cards reduce the damage he takes from multiple sources simultaneously which is more times than not much better than Adaptive Plating. His components while individually don't do as much damage as his older incarnation are more sturdy, durable, and consistently effective.

There is also the issue of the global destruction. Omni-X can pretty much also do the technological singularity since his singularity card allows him to destroy any equipment card and not just his own. He can wipe the board pretty easily depending on the other members of his team. Disruptive flechettes is just as effective as Sedative flechettes. It doesn't do as much damage, but it hits all non hero targets which includes environment targets as well as villain ones, and even though it destroys only two ongoings, how many villains regularly have more than two ongoings out at a time. Most of the time Disruptive Flechettes will rid the field of all the ongoings you want destroyed.

Your argument with Ambuscade while correct can be applied to absolutely anyone. It's basically the argument people give for why Batman should be able to beat anyone and anything. There's no reason for us to assume that the heroes can't fight the villains solo if they were given enough preperation time as well. There is also no reason to assume that the heros never fight villains on their own and win in their individual comic lines. That's like saying that after Superman formed the Justice League he stopped taking on and defeating villains on his own.

The game has no mechanic for soloing because that defeats the whole purpose of the game. It's a game first and a story second. It's supposed to be a game where you and your friends enjoy being superheroes, and having the heroes be able to solo against the villain goes against that.

... Second

Actually it was about the stock Omnitron put in Empathy working, that we see him much less an individual powehouse.

I think the correlation between Omni and Blade work very well.  Both have weak original versions that have lots of minions and devices used to make them stronger.  They have promo versions where they try to defeat the heroes, then seperately they come to the same conclusion, Baron Blade that he needs a team to match the team Legacy has formed, and Omnitron deciding that the Empathy that causes that team to be so successful is the ticket to victory.

Both give up their minions and large scale plans to try and mimic the heroes they long to defeat.  Omnitron's experiment leads to him becoming a hero, while Blade forms a team of super powered people.

He doesn't have drones because he doesn't need them. Other heroes are much more effective than drones will ever be. 

Your argument with Ambuscade while correct can be applied to absolutely anyone. It's basically the argument people give for why Batman should be able to beat anyone and anything. There's no reason for us to assume that the heroes can't fight the villains solo if they were given enough preperation time as well. There is also no reason to assume that the heros never fight villains on their own and win in their individual comic lines. That's like saying that after Superman formed the Justice League he stopped taking on and defeating villains on his own.

As to Omni's actual abilities, in a vacuum Omnitron-X is not that strong a hero.  Give him some allies to eat some damage for him, to boost him and for him to boost and his value increases incredibly.

Yes I know, all heroes are better when they have team mates boosting them, but some improve more than others, and Omni improves a whole lot.  Omni does tons of little points of damage, he heals multiple targets, and can put cards in play for allies.  He is incredibly valuable in a team.  Take Legacy, this card game doesn't focus on what Legacy can do solo, yet we see it with how hard his one-shots hit and his survivability.  But we also see how valuable he is as a leader, more valuable in that role, clearing the way and strengthening his allies he becomes much more valuable than he is alone.

Compare that to Haka or Wraith, who both benefit from having team mates and benefit teams, but they would be just about as strong if you put Isolated Hero on them for the whole fight, you do that to Legacy or OX and a whole lot of their kit isn't good anymore.

That isn't just mechanics, it is backed up in their bios and text and storyline.  They traded in their individual might to become a key part to an even mightier team.

That is why I said Omnitron-X gave up a good bit between Cosmitron and Omnitron-X.  That it is so well exemplified in the way their decks work is why I take issue with this notion that gameplay tells us nothing about the characters.

Original Omnitron does exist in a vacuum and isn't really that impressive of a villain. I just don't buy that Omni-X gave up more than what he gained coming into this particular incarnation. I'm not saying that gameplay tells us nothing about the characters, I'm saying that it can't be relied on alone to tell us what the power scale is between characters. Visionary is considered by many to be one of the most powerful characters in the game, but by herself she is also not that special. We know from flavor text and art that she can control people's mind and incapacitate large groups with her psychic powers. She has her damage cards by the majority of her powers are represented in utility and helping the team.

This does not mean that a damage heavy version of the Visionary's deck would be unfaithful to the character. It would just be more boring. This is a team game, and in order for a team game to be interesting different characters have to fill different roles and niches, and visionary's is mostly control. Likewise, Legacy is a mostly support character even though we know he's strong enough to lift trains and stop meteors. The gameplay of a hero greatly reflects their personality and how they work with others, but it shouldn't be the only factor when trying to judge a character's overall power.

If Omni-X has any weakness over his earlier form it is simply a lack of available resources. He doesn't have as many devices lying around, but again he doesn't really seem to need them. We can't judge a hero by how powerful they are based on how they could act by themselves because that's not how this game is designed. If it was designed with the intent of heroes being able to solo fights, then I guarantee you that there would be drastic changes to the existing decks that would make soloing more possible. Each hero would still have their strengths and weaknesses but they would be designed to exist in a vacuum. They're not designed to exist in a vacuum though, so judging how they do by themselves is an inaccurate way to judge or compare a hero's power or effectiveness.

One thing that can be good to consider is how the DIFFICULT villains stack up against each other. Like, is the Chairman; a relatively normal, if hard-to-kill and highly intelligent -- mob boss, REALLY more of a threat than an invading alien army, a fallen angel, Gaia on PMS, and a freaking ELDER GOD?

The Chairman is more powerful than all of those because, unlike all of those, he's concentrated all his power into one spot.  Trying to fight Akash is like trying to go through a mountain...given time, you can drill a path straight through, because you're attacking one spot on the rock, and ignoring the rest of the mass because it isn't directly in your path.  Chairman, by comparison, is a reinforced iron gate - much smaller, but made of a tougher material, designed specifically to block your entry rather than just happening to be in the way.  You can beat Akash'Bhuta because you were only ever capable of commanding about 1% of her attention, and that's when she's fixated on you; the rest of her is just spread across the whole planet, turning corporate executives into animals and stuff.  You could never beat ALL of her; the game just shows you beating one particular incursion.

Likewise, Voss is trying to conquer the whole galaxy; his billions of troops are distributed across many star systems at a time, and while he's come down to supervise this invasion personally, he doesn't want to waste time transporting his entire army across vast distances, so he sends the vast formations of troop transports out in all directions, and uses a smaller and more mobile flagship to get to each battle when the time is right for him to assume personal command.  Gloomweaver is a cross between the two - a vast cosmic entity emanating from another dimension, probably not yet fully made real in this universe, and when you beat him, he just oozes back through the membrane into his home reality...it's not like you actually HURT him any more than a mosquito hurts a person, you just distracted him enough to thwart his plans and make him withdraw temporarily.

But the Chairman?  If you come into his town and start messing with his racket, arresting his Thieves and firing his Crooked Cops, then you suddenly become his sole priority, and all the might of The Organization is thrown behind no other purpose than getting rid of you.  He doesn't mess around; he doesn't hold any resources back to divert to other battles; he doesn't try to ensure his survival in case the worst happens, because he has no fallback plan and so can't afford to lose anything.  He devotes all the power he can muster to squashing you like a bug, caring nothing for reputation or a propaganda victory, willing to play as dirty as he must, taking no prisoners, etc. etc.

I thought it was a pretty trite lesson in "The Dark Knight Rises" where they said that you couldn't get out of the Pit until you learned the fear of death...but, whether it's true in any general sense, it's very much fitting for stories in the Batman vein, and The Chairman is a pastiche of a Batman villain.  If it makes sense for Batman to be able to stand side by side with Superman in certain battles, then it makes sense for Chairman to draw such strength from his desperation, his urge to win or die at the game of thrones, that he poses a much greater in-the-here-and-now threat than some cosmic villain, who basically clowns around and doesn't take the battle seriously because they think Earth is just some tiny planet, just a stepping-stone on the way to a far greater conquest, and/or humans are an insignificant species whose entire civilization is just a geologic eyeblink.

Legacy has two support powers and two support cards.  Most of his deck is tanking.  His support is geared towards his leadership, he is a pretty tough hero on his own, with a team he himself stays that tough, but he makes his team ridiculously strong.

Visionary by herself can turn villains against each other, manipulate their actions, make herself invincible, protect herself with decoys, boost her own damage, reduce villain damage, neuter any environment damage, and with demoralization, twist the ether and her one shots she can put out pretty nice spurts of damage.  If you take Dark visionary she's even better.  She can make her allies better or herself better, she is a control with the ability to take one player (herself or another) and make them extremely powerful, esp. Fanatic or AZ.

Omnitron-X has a balance of these styles, his timeshift is a powerful boost to any hero, much like Visionary he has to use it wisely on himself or others.  He also has a group heal.  On his own he's not weak, but he is definitely sub-optimal.  Innervation Ray is a great recovery system, and Time Shift ranks right up with the best support abilities in the game.  He adds to these great destruction abilities, and several different damage options.

He gains a lot more from ally support than either Visionary or Legacy, Defensive blast is ok on its own, as is gaussian coil blaster, but both get much better with any damage boosting.  Defensive blast gets ridiculously more powerful with + damage, something Omni can't give himself.  His irreducible damage is great, but not very big.  On his own he can put up a bunch of single points of damage on un protected minions, or hit hardened targets for 2 or 4 damage, and then pull off a finishing move with self-destruct or singularity.

Omni is one character that gains incredibly with support, but also gives support as well, possibly more than anyone else  With his component-destruction text he benefits greatly from others taking damage for him, and in return when he is protected he can get a ton of components out and heal allies and timeshift them, while buffing Omni's damage allows him to deal some really potent damage.

The point is this is his Empathy.  He is designed to function in a team like this.  Omnitron traded the potency he had with no one else working with him, for the ability to have that kind of impact in a team.  Put a Legacy and Unity with Omnitron-X and he is more powerful than his earlier forms, because you can't hit him to destroy his components, he is making his team mates more powerful (ridiculously so in Unity's case) and their boosts to his damage can result in some ridiculous numbers from Defensive blast and his four damage components.

Legacy and Visionary would be hurt just as much from being on their own as Omni-X. Legacy has no ongoing destruction and few cards that hit multiple targets. It would take a while for him to die, but villains can easily overwhelm him. Also he cannot benefit from his own base power without a Legacy Ring effectively halving his effectiveness on his own versus with a team. Visionary has a lot of control bur very little damage. Wrest the Mind also has a steep damage cost and she can't keep it up for long. Again, by herself she woul also be overwhelmed pretty quickly.

If the game was indeed designed for one on one battle, than the limit for Omni-X's components would probably be increased. 5 is a mechanically sound number for the average dealt to heroes from the villains in a round. I gave a long list of example of card by card comparisons with Omni-X and classic Omni. Omni-X trades raw damage for more durability, consistency and efficiency.

The only advantage Classic Omni really has the potency of Technological Singularity. In pretty much every game I've played with the two, Omni-X completely dominates the field until that card is played. In story terms, Omni-X can only carry whatever he has on him when he time travels, but that's still a lot of stuff that appears to generally be more useful than drones or devices. It' pretty consistent with how technology normally advances becoming smaller and more efficient. There are trade offs in both forms, but I think saying Classic Omni is just way more powerful is incredibly deceptive.

When I think alone vs. with team I'm not thinking of that hero soloing, but basically the difference in effect you could have if you were under the effects of Isolated Hero for the entire match.

X isn't the weakest hero under that scenario, but he isn't far off.  If the villain has reduction of 1 Omni maxes out at 6 damage to one target a round unless he destroys his stuff.  He still has destruction and a fast deck, which is good.

If other heroes can eat the destruction Visionary can solo many villains in this setup.  Both Twists on herself, demoralization, wrest the best damage dealing minions.  Use Decoys and Cocoons as needed, play one-shots, mess with the villain deck.  You can beat a good number of villains.

Legacy the same, you miss that base power but with one shots +2 to damage and incredible toughness he can do a lot as well.

Take that isolated hero off Omni and he gets so much better, while helping the team a lot, Legacy makes the rest of the team better, and Visionary gets to choose between herself or an ally doing more.  Omnitron gains incredibly from +damage, right up with Fanatic and Ranger, and from a tank protecting him, since no other hero loses cards when they take enough damage.

Classic Omni has EPE, alternating -1 or +1 on different sides, and a near constant supply of drones that deal damage or heal him.

Omnitron-X has the ability to work well with team mates.

Overall that is a win for X, because of how well he and those team mates interact.  Isolated from them he is significantly weaker than his earlier forms.

So for fun, and because I'm off school so I've got some time to burn. I threw out both omnitron's "perfect set-up", of all their components best plating ect. This sort of represents their "comic book power" as it gives them all their options all the time.

For omnitron I put out copies of interpolation, railgun, and disintegragtion, as well as adaptive plating. I did not count his drones of electro-pulses but I will make note of them. I also did not do nemesis bonus, I just didn't feel like it

Repair drones don't do any good damage wise, but if all drones are out they would heal 10 each.

Automaton drones are generally pointless (omnitron deals mostly energy so Omni-x would equip elemental exochasis so Auto drones need at least H=3 to deal any damage)

Assault drones would be devasting, 10 damage each if all drones are out (30 total) this is also true of the electro-pulses if both were put out.

Interpolation does 0 damage (1-2)

disintegrationg does 0 damage unless h=3, in which case it does 2 total ((3-2) *2)

railguns will do 2-4 depending on h (an h-1 I said could not end up below 1 damage)

so if we do not count drones and pulses we get omnitron dealing about 6 damage at h=3, any lower and we have 2 damage. If we count the drones and pulses and set h=3 he deals about 69.

Omni-x

would have reactive plating in play, so deals at least 2 energy damage, perhaps more depending on if you count complete cancelations and you bother hitting drones since omnitron is immune to energy after the first hit

Start of turn omni-x  has 2 electro deployments so he can play 2 cards without sacrificing anything to his big cards at this point 2 sedative fletchettes would be useful, killing all drones in play (if we put them there) and destroying adaptive plating. 4 damage

2 plasma cannons deal 4 damage

2 gausian coils deal 2 damage (and could hit 2 other things if other targets still exist)

omni-x gains 2 hp from innervation (could also heal 4 other targets if so desired and if they exist)

play slip through time

use defenseive blast for 4 damage to everything

use defensive blast for 4 damage to everything

play self sabotage, destroy all of own and omnitrons components for 28 damage

Total damage to multiple targets would be about 14 or so damage (enough to kill or at least neuter the pulses)

to omnitron it would be about  48 damage

So, if X strikes first then he destroys or neutuers omnitrons entire field and hits him for almost half his health.

If omnitron strikes first without his drone army and massive bombs (and we set power at h=3) he has enough damage to destroy X's components and severly neuter the rest of his play. If h does not equal at least three omnitron does negligible damage. If he  brings to bear his entire drone army and massive bombs he destroys X quickly, which makes sense if you have 1 guy vs an army.

So, straight up 1v1 with all components X rips omnitron apart. If omnitron can use his army then he wins, of course, then it isn't 1v1.

While doing this my Darkwatch promos finally arrived, so I'm going to go enjoy them for a time

First off, why wouldn't you include the drones? They are tools, created and controlled by Omnitron; they aren't like allies or servants or something. They are PART of him. He is a SENTIENT ROBOTICS FACTORY, not just a big robot. That's an important part of the character you can't overlook, but people seem to do.

Second, you switched the effects of the disintigrator and the railgun around. The Railgun hits 2 for H-1, the railgun hits 1 for H+1.

I still don't agree that X is significantly weaker. Again, I did a comparison of the similar cards like Terraforming and Bioengineering, and from what I can tell, X when performing similar functions to his counterparts is generally more consistent and efficient.

Also, X doesn't need help from other heroes to be great. His components don't do more than two damage each, but they all go off at the start of his turn and essentially give him free damage before he plays any cards or uses any powers. Rocket punch as well is a pretty solid damage power. He's not going to outdamage someone like Ra, but he will still be doing consistently decent damage every turn, and as far as DR goes, he is one of the only heroes who can naturally do irreducible damage. I don't think an isolated hero will hurt Omni-X so much more significantly than other heroes.

X also has some of the quickest setup time out of all the characters. Reset gives him a free draw and play, Technological Advancement allows him to draw a card and search for an equipment or component, and then his own base power gives him a free play on top of all that. Usually Omni is pretty ready to go on his own in about round 2 or 3 with no help from other heroes.

Having other heroes around certainly helps reduce damage, but depending on who you're fighting with the right plating X takes little to no damage even when he's taking the majority of the damage, especially if he's in a game of H=3. I just don't find him significantly less effective on his own than heroes like Legacy or Visionary. He relies a lot on his components but he has some of the quickest set up and recovery out of any hero.

I think Omni's Ideal setup would be two EPE's in play.

And coincidentally enough, O-X's ideal setup is two EDU's in play.

I skipped out on the drones for two reasons. The firdt was I focused on the core omnitron units. Yes he builds the drones because he is a factory, but just because he is building them doesn't mean they are as much a part of him as his guns and actual factory floor.

Secondly, as I stated, most of the drones don't effect the outcome that much. O-X can almost ignore the automatons, he can damage more than the repair bots heal, and he can kill all drones on the field before his "turn" is over. So if O-X gets the first strike Omnitron can have out whatever he wants, o-x destroys it or renders it ineffectual. If Omnitron goes first than the way assault drone works or the explosives, then Omnitron can kill… well dang, with 69 damage omnitron can kill just about any other character in the game outright.

When you said "factory floor" I abruptly developed an intense desire to roleplay Omnitron in a game of RoboRally.

To get back on topic, Skinwalker Gloomweaver's obverse is freaking terrifying.  Before, he was kind of a cliche, but now...shivers.  Adam absolutely nailed the pure malevolence and bio-horror of the guy...he makes me think of Xipe Totec, walking around with no skin and demanding sacrifices by the thousand.

I know this is way back there, but I dislike it immensely when people confuse "being social" with "being extroverted". Being far more introverted the extroverted, I still socialize, just with fewer people for less time because I need to be alone to recharge. Actually, the flavor text on Unity's cards support the introvert idea: happy and playful with her friends, annoying/weird/rude to others (not necessarily true, just how she's seen).

A dark Unity villain would be nice, especially as the RPG seems to indicate she has an always active weak magentic field around her: "always manipulating a bit of metal around her".