Equipment & Ongoing?

I missed this somewhere along the way, but how do Equipment cards come into effect? For example, if I play Wraith’s “Utility Belt” as a power, is that then in effect until it’s removed from play? Do I use it as a power or is it just “on” if I play it as a card? (Same for the targeting computer or other equipment…)

For something like Legacy’s power to increase his damage by one, does that just keep stacking or is it only until I attack the first time like w/ Wraith’s “Stealth”? I tried finding definite answers in the rules, but couldn’t quite figure out the correct gameplay, especially for equipment. (Could easily have overlooked it, but was definitely fuzzy on the rules.)

Thanks for the help.

Anything that is simply listed on the card is in effect when it enters play, and is removed when it’s removed from play. Anything that is written as a power come into effect if you choose to activate it during the power phase.

And for Legacy’s Galvanize the card says until the start of Legacy’s next turn, so this can’t be stacked on top of itself multiple times, if that’s what you were asking.

-awp

Whenever a Equipment or Ongoing card is played during the Play Phase it will remain on the character until it is somehow removed. The only ones that need to be used as a power are the ones that state “Power:” in bold letters in the description, whatever follows that is what is used when you use the power. So Wraith’s Utility Belt will remain in play and allows you to use two powers on your Power Phase. Now playing a card like Throwing Knives, it will remain in play and have no effect to gameplay until you use it in the Power Phase.

Now there is the case as in Ra’s Staff of Ra has both a passive ability and a power. If it is in play Ra will always have his damage increase by one and his HP will have been increased by five at the time of play. Though he can use the power it grants him that will allow him to do three projectile damage and discard the Staff of Ra. So Ra will still gain his plus one increase making it four damage, but afterwards will have to discard it and subtract the five HP from his health.

I don’t have the cards with me right now, but I could have sworn Staff of Ra increased fire damage dealt by Ra +1, thus not getting the bonus on the projectile damage, as it’s not fire.

I just doubled checked, it is all damage dealt by Ra.

OK - got it. Didn’t notice the “Power” differentiator anywhere in the rules to separate from equipment, but that makes me feel a bit better. Also means that I wasted powers in my playing of Wraith. Is this explained in the rules and I missed it? Logic and I just didn’t catch that bit of logic? Elsewhere? Just wondering because it seems odd that I missed something basic like this, but I apparently did.

My question on Legacy’s power was for one of his cards - applied a +1 boost to Legacy’s damage, but no indication whether it could be cumulative or if it was only able to be boosted by a max of +1. Definitely not his built-in power, which I used to to the misunderstanding/poor reading below…

I missed the setup phase where each hero started with 4 hero cards. That made the game a bit more difficult and we were trounced. Of course, it was a win in that my kid wants to play again and I think we’ll get a bit better in working together to defeat the villains.

If a card increases power it will only be plus one that is all the increase will be until it is discarded. So it will not add addition plus one each turn, it’ll just be one.

I missed the setup phase where each hero started with 4 hero cards.

Sounds like the “power” rule wasn’t the only thing you missed in the rules.

Cards listed as “Limited” can only have one copy of said card in play at a time. So if you’re talking about Surge of Strength (really it would be easier if you mentioned the card names), it’s limited, so he can only have one out.

But he can stack Surge of Strength on top of Inspiring Presence and Galvanize, there’s no limit to the number of +1 bonuses that can stack on top of each other, so long as the above Limited card rule is obeyed.

True, but that was because I was in a rush to play the game and just set up what I saw on the pics after a very quick glance. I actually had read that the first time through - just forgot/missed it in my excitement to get started.

I will do another more careful re-read, but I looked through the rules quite a bit trying to figure out the whole power increase and equipment usage - even searched here and on BGG for some clarification. I just never saw the detail that everyone was so nice to provide here. I’m sure I’ve missed others along the way, but now have enough to proceed with what will hopefully be a more successful campaign to defeat the evildoers!

Well - didn’t have the exact card in front of me when I posted that. I just recalled that it was an ongoing card. That’s why I was wondering if I used that power each turn if it would accumulate in some way. Not a huge deal if it can only be played once until discarded/destroyed. The equipment question was definitely the more pressing for me.

I’m going to need to re-read some of these equipment cards to double-check their usage now that I’ve got a better understanding of those.

On a related note, how do you keep track of which power(s) are activated during the gameplay? Tokens? Memory? Other? Maybe I misunderstand about playing hero cards vs. activating powers. The impression I got was that you could “ready” powers without necessarily using them. Is that incorrect? Looks like I may want to invest in some mini chips or something to track powers in use vs. powers just readied…

Thanks to everyone for the assistance here. We did enjoy our first foray and I’m looking forward to the next adventure.

How exactly would you “ready” a power? I mean. You can play a card that has a power on it without using the power in your power phase, if that’s what you meant. Other than that, you either use the power or you don’t.

Christopher plays from memory I believe. But he wrote the game and I didn’t, and plus I dont have that kind of memory, so I use counters. I have two seperate counters that I use, red ones for +Attack and blue ones for +Armor.

Any time a character (or villan, villan card, etc) has his/her damage increased I add a red token to their character card, or to a specific peice of equipment that they have, if said equipment only affects part of the characters damage (for example, Tempest’s buffs from Inspirational Presence or Galvanize go on Tempest’s character card, but the counters he gains from Gene-Bound Shackles go onto Gene-Bound Shackles, so I remember to only apply them when appropriate). If villan cards (or environments, or heroes, etc) are taking reduced damage, I add an armor counter to those cards.

Then whenever someone makes an attack its just
[(Listed Damage + Red Counters) - (Blue Counters)] = Total Damage.

Simple, effective. Keeps the game moving for me, makes things easier.

-awp

I mostly play with just memory, though I will sometimes use extra d10s (which I also use for HP) to count, say, Wraith’s “Stealth” bonus. It also helps to just do a quick scan of the board for any ongoing/equipment cards you might be forgetting.

I just did a re-read of the rules last night and found no reference to Equipment anywhere in the rules other than in passing or the glossary. Saying this just because I don’t know how I missed this in my understanding of the game. Equipment is a hero card, but to me Wraith’s “Throwing Knives” would be a power to be activated rather than something that just happens every turn because it’s readied/equipped. If I’m wrong about that, great, it helps me with those characters. I’m just completely missing the details about equipment in the rules on how those cards work. Powers, I get, probably a little better now.

Note - mentioning this again because it might be worth a little additional clarity in any changes/reprints that may happen in the future. I really, really appreciate everyone here helping me out.

As for a power being “readied” - I guess that means that it’s now available for me to use. It’s not actually in use until I choose to use it as a power. The way I read the rules was “Play a hero card” as phase 2, followed by “use a power” in phase 3, followed by “draw a card” in phase 4. (iirc) To me that means I may have that power available to use but not choose to use that particular power when I use a power in the next phase.

Overall, just seems like there’s a difference between powers and equipment that the rules didn’t explain well to me. Not meaning this to be negative criticism, just observing that I didn’t catch this when I read the rules and ended up posting here.

Pretty much, every card is either a One-Shot, which means it’s discarded after play, or it’s not One-Shot, which means it remains in play after being played. Titles such as Equipment, Ongoing, Device, or Minion are just there so they can be targeted by other cards (such as destroy all Equipment).

My understanding of it is quite simple. Equipment is an ongoing card that has a Power that can be activated on your turn during the “Use a Power” step. It is only Equipment for other cards that target that type of card.

[quote=““The Conscience””]

My understanding of it is quite simple. Equipment is an ongoing card that has a Power that can be activated on your turn during the “Use a Power” step. It is only Equipment for other cards that target that type of card.

[/quote]

So Wraith’s Microtargeting Computer is equipment that would need to be used as a power every turn to give +2 to projectiles or used once and then in effect until the card goes away? This is where I start getting a bit confused. I played with it as a “need to use each turn” but if that’s not the case, then I’ve been playing wrong and the rules aren’t very clear on these situations (at least to me). I don’t think the micro targeting is ongoing so that reads to me as a “must be activated to use that turn”. And it definitely makes more sense to me that “Throwing Knives” are not ongoing or it would turn into a free attack each turn, cool as that would be.

I apologize for the many questions - just trying to get this sorted out in my mind. I thought that it was, but now have more questions of a slightly different sort.

Thanks again.

If the card does not contain the word “Power” followed by an indented paragraph, then it doesn’t require a power to be active. If a card specifies a condition (such as “At the start of your turn” or “When damaged by a target” etc) then the effect only comes into play when that condition is true. If neither of those are present (the card simply states an effect) that effect is valid from the time it comes into play until the time it is removed from play. As such, words like Equipment or Device or Ongoing or Minion or whatever have no meaning on the card itself except when other cards specifiy words like Equipment or Device or Ongoing or Minion or whatever.

Time to do some card-reading. Likely tomorrow at this point as we’ve had all sorts of stuff stopping us from enjoying a full game (except for getting crushed by a moon during our first game, probably due more to me skipping the setup rules in my rush to get started than anything else). I hope this is my last post on this topic.

TheJayMann is totally correct! Cards are either One-Shots, or not (as he stated), and the “not” category is further broken down between “Targets” and “Other” - the difference is that “targets” have HP and are destroyed if their current HP are reduced to 0 (or below), whereas non-target cards stay in play forever unless another card specifically says that it destroys them.

Ok. Let me ask this. I was playing last night as Bunker. If Bunker has more than one equipment card in play at a time, such as grenade launcher and gatling gun, can he use all of them or can only use one of them?

Thanks,
Mike

There is no limit on the amount of cards in play (with the exception of a card with the “Limited” keyword, in which case only one card with that title is allowed on the table). A player however is given only one power to use on his turn. There are methods available to obtain the ability to use additional powers, and, in that case, that player may not use the same power from the same card twice. If the ability listed on the card does not state “Power” then it is not limited in the way I described, and is instead automatic.

And, in the case of Bunker specifically, using more than one power per turn is accomplished via Turret Mode.