Order of actions in hero play

The rules state :

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After the Villain turn, each Heroes takes a turn, going around the table clockwise from the Villain.
Hero turns have three phases: Play a Card, Use a Power, and Draw a Card.

1. Play a Card: You may take a card from hand and put it into play.

2. Use a Power: You may activate a Power from one of your cards in play.

3. Draw a Card: You may draw the top card of your Hero deck.

Note: If you neither Play a Card nor Use a Power, you may draw an extra card at the end of your turn.

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but this does not state whether these three action MUST be performed in this order of that they can be performed in any order. This matters for xample for Legancy's base power. If the action MUST be followed in the stated order then he can never boost himself as the power ends at the start of his turn and must be turned on again as hiw power use but any cards played are played in between these two events! This weakens him considerably, and he's my favourite (boo) lol

Can you provide an official answer? Thanx

Savourn

In the quick reference guide at the beginning it doesn't list any particular order, but on page six of the rule book (EE) under the hero turn section it clearly lists a sequence of events between the start of the turn and the end of the turn. Keep in mind that the top of the page is labeled turn sequence, not round sequence.

Note that you can use LEgacy's power to buff himself and then hit something if you have the Legacy Ring out - this lets you use two powers. So use the first as Galvanise, and the second as Motivational Charge if you've got it out...I don't think he has any other powers which involve hitting someone else. Also, someone like the Argent Adept can use his powers to let other heroes use their own powers/play cards/draw cards.

I did have a thought the other day, when playing as the Adept in a team with Legacy. You can only use a power once per turn, right? But if it's another hero's turn, you can use that same power again if they have the ability to let you. For example, Ra uses Blazing Tornado to nuke something, then the Adept takes his turn and lets Ra use Blazing Tornado again because it's not Ra's turn any more, but the Adept's. So can you get Legacy to play Galvanise again and get an extra bonus to damage? I'm guessing this will be a "no" because the new Galvanise just overrides the old one. But still, it'd be cool (if tremendously overpowered) were things otherwise :D.

Yes, you can use a power once per turn. So if ra uses blazing tornado on his turn, then adept lets him use another power he can use blazing tornado again since it is no longer his turn. If adept lets him use a second power the same turn though, he can't use blazing tornado again. In the case with Legacy it says that it increses the damage delt by hero's by 1 until the start of his next turn. If he gets to use that say 2 times in a round, that is 2 sets of +1 damage that don't go away until the start of legacy's turn. So yea with legacy + adept on a team of 2 others who deal a decent amount of damage that's quite the swing.

Though one thing about Argent Adept and Legacy is you would want Legacy to go before Argent Adept, so that way the galvanizing does stick for any other hero. As if Argent Adept went first and had Legacy go that would stop the power right then and there since it is now the start of Legacy's turn. Turn order certainly has a lot to do with how well abitlites work with one and another.

Wow, that's cool...you can stack multiple "copies" of Galvanise? Nice :D. Hmm, good point though on that Legacy would need to go before the Adept. I shall have to think about this :D. I suppose that's sort of the point of the game, isn't it - working out which combinations work best, diferent combinations of teamwork to get the arses kicked as best as possible :).

Pretty much, you want Argent Adept to go after everyone but Bunker,Omni-tronks, and maybe Unity.

People like Legacy, Scholar, Mister Fixer, and Haka benefit from cards that go away at the start of their turns, so having AA go first denies you the opportunity to play them after your turn. On the other hand, Fanatic, Omni-tronks, Bunker, and (kind of) Unity benefit from cards that ACTIVATE at the start of their turns (components, zealous offense, gatling gun, supply crate) so playing them before their turn but after the villain turn is nice.

I get a lot of mileage out of the Argent Adept going first.  He doesn't go first against Chairman or Apostate (you need someone to kill the Informants or Tome), and he goes second if Legacy is on the team (for the reason mentioned above).  In just about every other circumstance, though, I have him first.  His array of support effects make sure he can apply the one the team needs that turn, adjusted from round to round.

That said, I'm going to start playing without fretting about turn order, in order to discover new ways to use the heroes.

Yeah, we pointedly just play in whatever order we sit in.

But even then there are n different orders available to a group of n heroes, depending on where you start.

Usually there's just one or two choices, as the villain and environment go at one end of the table or another.

Argent Adept should definitely go after Mister Fixer. It lets him play Grease Gun out of turn, and get maximum benefit from playing Overdrive out of turn.

Sure, if you're going to shackle yourself to a linear progression.

I played a game a couple days ago where I was running two heroes and watching over another person who was relatively new to the game who was running two heroes and we were fighting against Spite. Last thing I need in a situation like that is anything non-linear.

That being said, I rather do like the idea of putting the villain and environment in the middle of the table rather than on one end. It's harder to remember turn order, but it's easier for people to see the cards, even if they are upside down to half of the people.

Yeah, that's generally how it works for us. I tend to put myself last in the turn order (unless I'm Legacy) just so I can take care of the "AI" turns.

Why is that? I've only played a couple of games so far, so I'm very new to the game. Why is important not to have Legacy to be the last?

B ecause Legacy's base power, Galvanise, boosts everyone else's damage so you really want him going first to get as much benefit from it as possible. Young Legacy, who has a different base power isn't so critical to be first.

Mmm, yesterday we were four players and Legacy was the last hero to act before the enviroment turn. We used Galvanize to boost everyone else's damage in the next round as the card states that the power last till the next start of turn of Legacy. Did we play incorrectly?

Nope, you played correctly, but if he'd been first, it would have meant the frist turn of each hero would have been boosted rather than the second, so one extra turn of more damage.

The Galvanize would last into the next turn, so Victor played it correctly.  Does it really matter if you boost the players whose turn comes after Legacy during the current round instead of the players who will come before Legacy on the next round?  Maybe if you're a min/maxer who wants to squeeze every last bit of damage from the heroes, but it's still the same number of players getting the same boost over the same amount of time.  I don't think it's that big of a deal.

You played it right. The time when that doesn't work is when the Environment or Villain plays a card that prevents you from dealing damage. If Legacy is last and uses Galvanize and the environment flips a card that says "Heroes cannot use powers," then you kinda just wasted that Galvanize. The buff is still in effect, but you're not in a position to utilize it.

For this reason, I find that heroes that boost other heroes like to go first. That way you have the most information about the effects of your boost before you activate it and there's no craziness that can interfere with it this round. Also if you have draws it's nice to have the cards in hand to use this round instead of having to wait through an extra villain phase. I also find that heroes who debuff the villain like to go last becuase there's less computation and coordination involved in seeing what effect your actions will have.

Usually I'll be first or last so that I can manage the villain and environment turns in a row with mine. I generally play fairly efficiently and have the most experience with the game amongst my friends so the duty typically falls to me. This also means that we don't really try that hard to put all the heroes in their optimal spots because I like playing Ra as much as the next guy. I mean, if we were playing on advanced with a bunch of experienced players and Legacy really wants to get the damage boost out so that we can wipe the villain's setup minions on turn 1 instead of turn 2 then it absolutely does make a difference. But I often play with some inexperienced players and we rarely care to be that hardcore about it. Minmaxing can be fun from time to time, it just doesn't happen to be how I usually interact with SotM.

Oh, I see. I'll remember that next time I play, pwatson, altough to be honest, it wan't an issue yesterday. We beat Baron Blade very handily, so much that my friends thought the game was way too easy. I had to keep explaining them we were very lucky with our initial hands (some very powerful and nice combos) and that Baron Blade was very unlucky (on the first round he got the nanites that heal him 10 hp, so basically a whole turn wasted, and on Legacy's first turn we played the card that prevents the villain for playing a card next round (can't remember the name right now). So it was a free for all for the heroes for the first two turns. 

Also remember Blade is one of the easiest villains in the game. I don't think I've ever lost a game against him, come to think of it.

Rook City's villains are tough, and Infernal Relics is a mixed bag. With regard to difficulty. Don't get me wrong, I actually think IR has the coolest and most fun villains in the game. But the only villains easier than Blade are Ambuscade and Gloomweaver, and Gloomweaver does have potential to be hard if you get that one-in-a-thousand shuffle where he actually has a chance to flip.

That makes me feel better, because my first play (solo) with three heroes was harder than the one with my friends, but I still managed to win without excessive effort, and I was worried I might be doing something wrong. I saw in the rulebook that Baron Blade has a difficulty level of 1, but I assumed that it mean it was easier to play and explain to newbies than the other villains, not that it was easier to beat.

So which villian should i throw my friends next? I was thinking about Omnitron

Oh the villains are most definitely meant to represent a range of difficulties. It seems that they fold in some consideration of complexity, but difficulty is a major factor.

If you're finding the game easy try skipping straight to one of the harder villains and see what happens. I actually like to introduce the game to new players by playing once against Blade, Ambuscade or Omnitron depending on what they're interested in, and then for the next game toss them at somebody really brutal like The Organization, The Martiarch or Advanced Ennead. The idea is to set us up for a loss or narrow victory. Whether we win or lose that second game, for my friends at least it tends to energize them about the game rather than demoralize them, especially if we just came off a really easy win.

If you only have the base set, maybe try Dawn? I find her more fun than Voss, personally. The times I've lost against Voss have usually been when he pulled every minion in his deck with Forced Deployment and we just couldn't burn through them in time. Which can feel kinda cheap and I probably wouldn't want that to happen in somebody's second game. When I've lost against Dawn, it's generally been a feeling of getting slowly overwhelmed by her Citizens, which actually feels really cool and fair and winnable. She's easily my favorite villain in the base set because her mechanics are really varied but still thematic, and tactical play pays off big.

On the other hand...Devastating Aurora...NOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.......

So Citizen Dawn it is, then :D  I'm gonna have a look through her deck so I can be prepared to explain the different cards to my friends tomorrow.

Edit: Quick question. I've been checking Citizen Dawn. On the character card says: At the end of the villain turn, play the top card of the villain turn. 

I assume that if the card is a one-shot it activates, right?

Yeah, I just saw it. Horrible, horrible card! i love it! xDDD

Oh yeah, Devastating Aurora will wreck your day. IMO, the difference between DA and FD is that with a lateish FD you have one turn of hoping Fanatic can play End of Days, and one turn of punching minions to deal with it and if you fail to do so you lose. On the other hand, DA will put you in a desperate position, but it still feels like you can fight back. It's the difference between "What the hell? That's crazy! We really gotta pull it together now," and, "We do this or we lose."

Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy playing against Voss. I just love Dawn, and I feel like she's more likely to create "That was nuts! Come on guys let's go again I know we can do this," situations and less likely to create "Well there was nothing we could do there. I guess next time we'll just have to be luckier..?" situations. It's not even that common that it happens like that and he's got a lot of other cool stuff going for him, but it's not a great introduction to the game. With experienced players this matters less, but it's not what how I want somebody's second game to feel.

Eeeeeeyup. If you let her go nova, she gets nasty.

I usually try to be careful not to let her flip until I know she'll only stay flipped for a turn or two. For instance, if there are already 4 Citizens in the trash and H Citizens in play or if she has the card that resurrects Citizens.

Wow, she really is a nasty piece of work. I think I'm in love now xD

If you think Dawn's nasty you should see The Matriarch. First time I played against her, we ended the game with her at full life. *SHUDDER*

The thing with Devastating Aurora is that because it nukes all your stuff, you're basically back to square one with regards to your set-up. Not so bad with someone like Tachyon, who has a grand total of one piece of equipment and three Ongoings, but someone like the Adept or Ab'Zero is bascially buggered when this occurs. Meanwhile Dawn's still got citizens in play/coming out/being rezzed and unless you have some good one-shots (or copies of stuff you just lost) in-hand you're gonna take a while before you can do anything. Having the combo of Citizen Sweat and Citizen Tears in play really is nasty as well, since one forces everyone to discard a card (two if they're both in play) and the other forces hero Ongoing destruction (one Ongoing or all of a hero's Ongoings, depending on whether both these guys are in play). If Citizen Blood comes out, that completes the trio and while Blood on his own deals damage, he adds a damage component to the other who, who I think boost his damage themselves.

Really, to best kick Dawn's arse, some form of Ongoing destruction is essential (so that citizens can actually stay dead and you don't end up with two "Return with the Dawn" cards bringing them back every turn…trust me, that's bloody annoying), as is some kind of deck control so you can find the really horrible cards (Devastating Aurora, for example) and put them to the bottom of the deck or whatever. So someone like the Wraith, Nightmist, or the Visionary would be a good start to have in your team. If you can keep up the damage (killing Citizens ASAP), take out Ongoings quickly, and prevent any Auroras from coming out, you shouldn't have too much trouble. Unless you kill five or more citizens which will cause Dawn to flip and be invincible until a certain number (think it's H-2 or something) of citizens are in play. At least she only flips once per game.

Also, Citizen Anvil is Christopher ;).

With all that said about Dawn, I fervently agree that the Matriarch is a total…well, if I said the word I'd probably get banned forever and ever but you get the idea ;).

Unless you're Unity.  And Visionary's Decoy Projection stays in play as well.

I don't have Unity so other than that she makes a bunch of robots and I think destroys other people's stuff, or something, I don't know anything about her ;)..

Her Golems are targets, like Visionary's Decoy Projection.  They are not Hero Ongoing or Equipment cards, so they stay in play through Devastating Aurora.

Oh I'm not saying Devastating Aurora isn't harsh. It's completely brutal. I'm just saying it is possible to recover from it, while losing the game to Forced Deployment is, by definition, not something you can recover from.

I also totally agree that Visionary is a great pick against Dawn. She has repeatable Ongoing destruction, can filter out some of the meanest cards by scouting Dawn's deck, and can pull Citizens out of the trash. Brain Burn is especially strong against Dawn, because it both prevents her from flipping and removes targets for Return with the Dawn. I've never failed to have a fun game and feel super useful as Visionary against Dawn.

There are single card solutions to Forced Deployment other than End of Days. Fueled Freeze is one, and Grease Gun and Ground Pound are others. There's also the combo of Galvanise + Inspiring Presence + Hairtrigger Reflexes.

It's not the damage I'm concerned about in this scenario, it's Voss' alternate win condition. In any case, Fueled Freeze is a good answer as long as you have enough Ongoings to sack to it. Thanks for reminding me about that one, I had completely forgotten about it.