The Losers Game

Over the next several weeks, I'm going to be playing games where the heroes are consistently taken from the bottom of the statistical heap.  I'm doing this somewhat in response to the "Character so and so needs help" threads, but mostly out of curiosity.  I enjoy the play of all the heroes on the bottom except Bunker - who I'm hoping to learn to love.  I won't be playing official alternate characters (e.g., Rook City Wraith) or house-ruled characters to keep the games statistically significant.

The current update shows Absolute Zero, Mr. Fixer, Bunker, Ex-Pat, and Fanatic leading the crew.  Four of the five will be default group for my occasional solo games.

I'll post "Battle Reports" as they come.  I think my focus will be more on how fun the game was, rather than than the win-lose.

Perhaps I'll be able to convince some of my partners-in-defeating-crime to play some of these games.  We'll see.

I might join you in this, although I'll just be running with AZ-Bunker-Fanatic. Either way I wish you all the best of luck! :D

This sounds fun. I too might join you in this. 

I know that bunker and AbZ are considered bad because they require set up and destruction is just devastating to them. Expat and fixer are considered underpowered by some and the stats seem to show it. I have no idea why fanatic is up there. Maybe because she kills herself with little recovery options to play?

Fanatic is relatively difficult to play effectively. She has a lot of really strong options, but they're also really situational. If you're not noticing when those situations arise, you're going to fall on your face. That's my $0.02.

All are welcome!  I think that the difference between Fanatic and Chronoranger, the 5th best hero, is only around 8%.  My guess is there's a few world changers - the Batman and Reed Richards of the worlds, a few street level guys - the Daredevils, Ragmen, and Steaphie Browns*, and the rest of the heroes.

Fanatic just one in the "rest of the heroes" category who caught.

*I really enjoyed Batgirl IV, but I think every would agree that she would be one characters who'd be on the list of "losers".

I was toying with the idea of doing a series with the bottom 4 against the 10 villains I have (Base + Rook City + promo Baron/Omni), just to get a feel for how they all performed in the different situations (ie did Bunker underperform because he got a bad draw or because he just couldn't do anything against this villain). It wouldn't have any statistical strength, because I'm not going to go against each villain 100 times or anything, but more to improve my personal feel with those 4 (fwiw, I love Fixer, really enjoy AZ and Bunker, and... tolerate Expat :-p). I still may try it, though like I said, I really couldn't draw any conclusions from such a small scale.

I am not of the opinion that we need to be stastically significant here.  Just play the games and enter them into the database, if you're so inclined.  The point is to see how this team, which would be the PL-8 characters in a PL-10 world (to use Mutants and Masterminds terminology) would perform.

Posting observations is just gravy after the fun of it.

Great stuff, Amnachaidh. I totally agree that you should focus on whether it was fun or not (which wouldn't have statistical significance anyway). All of the arguments about hero strengths stems from some players not having fun with weaker heroes and others that do have fun with them. I can't wait to see your reports.

Game 1 -- Mr. Fixer, Bunker, ExPat, & AZ vs. Ambuscade in the Silver Gultch

Statstical Results - Heroes Win, No Incapcitations

MVP - Bunker - with the flexibility between the 3 guns.

Fun - 3/5

Danger 2/5

Shining Moment - Mr. Fixer's Grease Gun being used to roll the Explosives Wagon down to hill to explode safely.  "To attach this Zerk Fitting on to this wagon hub is to play Tethro Tull on a harpsicord", Mr. Fixer

This was a quick game - perhaps five-seven rounds.  Absolute Zero didn't really get a chance to attack - he tanked the entire game until the last round.  It really felt like a John Woo shoot-out, with Ambuscade's automated turret and custom hand cannon responding to Bunker's flak cannon, omni-cannon and/or gernade launcher and Ex. Pat's assault rifle and/or Pride and Prejudice.  The villain's initial draw had a turret, a sonic mine, and his cloaking device.  Mr. Fixer was solid continual damage, until the grease gun saved the heroes from some significant damage.

I don't recall ever having a super-fun game with Ambuscade.  It's a cat-and-mouse game, where more often than not it's the villain who's the mouse.

Great report. Not surprised about the result. Ambuscade is usually pretty easy. Also, he can't break your stuff which is one of the reasons some of these heroes are at the bottom.

j1hopki1 -- Thanks!

Game 2 – Absolute Zero, Ex-Pat, Mr. Fixer, and Bunker Vs. Miss Information in Insula Primalis

Statistical Results - Heroes Win, Absolute Zero Incapacitated from Miss Information’s Hit Back on Impale, last round

MVP – Luck.  Mr. Fixer’s Grease Gun mitigating Miss Information’s Hit Back, and drawing another Grease Gun

Fun - 5/5

Danger 5/5

Shining Moment – The turn after Miss Information flipped, when Absolute Zero was able to destroy many of her ongoings, and Mr. Fixer's Grease Guns negated all the hit backs. 

As easy as Abuscade was, Miss Information was hard.  The equipment heavy team was having a very bad day with the assistant.  Luck was with them, as sufficient clues came up in around five turns. Bunker found himself to be throwing out equipment that would normally go into play an be useful or feed an omni-cannon to protect Absolute Zero from being “frozen out” of the game.  (Sorry – can’t resist a pun).  In retrospect, I should have probably flipped it and had |0| feed the equipment destruction cards and let Bunker shoot the heck out of her, once she flipped

The villain deck’s multiple damage instances worked well with the environment deck’s obsidian fields, unfortunately. Luckily, Mr. Fixer’s grease gun came out on turns 2 and 3 after the Miss Information flipped, allowing the heroes to pound the helpless assistant with reprisals and nerfing the T-Rex.

As it stands, on the fourth turn after flipping, Absolute Zero was killed by the “hit back” from an impale played on villain character card.  If not for the two grease guns in hand, the game would have been very different.  As it stood, though, there was less than 12 hit points remaining amongst the remaining 3 heroes.

Game 3 – Absolute Zero, Ex-Pat, Mr. Fixer, and Bunker Vs. Kismet in the Ruins of Atlantis

Statistical Results - Heroes Lose

MVP – Jinx Cards.  T-Rex.

Fun - 4/5

Danger 4/5

Shining Moment – Watching Kismet deal all heroes 7 damage – one from a card, plus 6 for jinxes on board.

If Miss Information worked these characters dependence on equipment, Kismet worked the rarity of ongoing destruction in their decks. During the game, no Jinx went out of play until the hero charcter’s incapacitation.  The game ended with all heroes incapacitated, and Kismet in the mid-20s.

The game started with Mr. Fixer becoming a magnet for Jinxes, ultimately ending the game with four. He could not tie his shoes without taking damage, discarding a card, and sneezing. I was hoping to pull the card “driving mantis” to redirect the damage, but it never happened.  Sadly, Mr. Fixer was out of the game many rounds before he was incapacitated.

Ex. Patriot drew her shotgun immediately and stayed with it the entire game.  The solid four points a turn, plus the occasional amo card, minimized the damage her “two left feet” jinx caused.

Absolute Zero again tanked, but with a lucky start and a decent series of one shot draws managed to do significant, if insufficient, damage to Kismet.  The Fragile Bones card, allowing him to do an extra point of damage to himself, improved his self-healing very nicely.

Bunker was uninspiring but solid. He managed to get his grenade launcher out before various Kismet cards disappeared his hand.  The Omni and Flak cannons never showed.

The environment did a very large amount of damage this game, with the Kraken accounting for two characters (Bunker and Ex. Pat)

I believe that this is winnable, but this time the cards were not in the heroes’ favor.  A Flak Cannon and a turret mode would have been close enough to turn the tables, and with the addition of the driving mantis would have been.

I intend to replay Kismet with the squad, perhaps switching out Bunker for Fanatic, or playing H=5 Solo.  We’ll see.

Something to note about Kismet's front side is if a hero deals another hero 4 damage it destroys a Jinx. If possible, setting up Fixer with Grease Monkey, Dualcrow Bars/Pipe Wrench, and Harmony her could of hit Absolute Zero for 4 fire, thus destroying a Jinx and allow Absolute Zero to either regain it or attack again. Same if Expat ever got Incediary Rounds.

I wouldn't be surprised if this is your overriding impression with the losses you run into (if I get time, I may run a game or two with the same group and report my results here). They're all so equipment/ongoing dependant and have poor card draw (unless Bunker gets Recharge Mode or Ammo Drop out) that if you get unlucky card draw, they'll have a hard time catching up.

Bunker has pretty good card draw, I always thought.

I don't even use the old Absolute Zero anymore. Or the old Bunker, really. I feel like the Freedom Six versions fix all kinds of problems. They are so much more fun. It's really too bad that Greater than Games won't release an alternate Fixer or Expatriette. I'll just keep using my Fixer house rule I guess. I don't use one for Expat, though.

I think it depends with him.  Some villians don't put out a lot of targets so ammo drop suffers.  His other card draw is good if you are skipping the use of a combat power.  I do agree that he should be able to catch up a bit by using those extra draw powers instead of attacking.  In general between spending turns getting to good cards and turns getting them out he can take a while before he is set up to shine.  It takes much less time to get to where he contributes, but can take a long time to get into a really strong position with him.

Amnachaidh,

Congrats on the Miss Information win. Especially with these guys. When I play her I feel like I barely every use anything but innate powers.

As I mentioned, I think the Freedom Six version of Bunker and |0| could have beaten Kismet. You really don't want AZ to tank against her since she ramps up pretty quick. If the villain isn't using DR you want to use him fast and loose. Also, the ongoing destruction Engine of War does is way better than extra draws.

I agree that the new Absolute Zero is far better.  I feel it is much murkier with Bunker.  First, there are several villains that don't use ongoings, and some that may never draw them, making Initialize infinitely more useful than Locomotion for those fights.  Second, while nobody loves ongoing destruction more than me, Engine Bunker runs out of cards so fast.  There are many games in which, even if his Locomotion has been clutch, I find myself wishing he could do some old-fashioned Initializ-ing.  The problem is allayed somewhat if he gets Ammo Drop early, or if he can keep a gun out.  (Much like Expatriette, really.) 

I decide which promos to use based on the team and villain; if I expect AZ to tank, or at least need to do some healing, I'll use his original version for just that extra bit of healing early-game.

Thanks all.  I have enjoyed playing |0| - Elemental Wraith a few times, but for this project, I'm sticking to the original unimproved version.  It is part of the challenge.   I expect to lose more often than the math would have me – mostly from mistakes playing solo.

Have I missed an announcement that there would be no official Mr. Fixers or ExPats?  I was really hoping for the Mr. Fixer of old, before his students were killed. The “Impetuous Mr. Fixer”, who has the alternate power suggested on one of his threads of discarding a card for an extra point of damage, seemed like a nice fix.

Oh well, I digress.

In the case of the game vs. Kismet with Bunker, I had ammo drop very early, but it didn’t seem to matter much at all.  Kismet wasn’t losing cards enough to make ammo drop’s activation significant.

Game 4 –Mr. Fixer, Ex-Pat, Fanatic, and Absolute Zero Vs. Kismet in the Time Cataclysm (Changes from Game 3 in Bold)

Statistical Results - Heroes win, no incapacitations.  HPs were between 9 and 2 at end of game.

MVP – Absolute Zero with his damage absorption, turning glass jaw into a huge helper card.

Fun - 4/5

Danger 3/5

Shining Moment – Blowing up the Cyro Chamber, bringing |0| to 2 hit points, and taking out Kismet

During lunch today I ran the fight again, this time using Fanatic instead of Bunker.  Between slightly different draws for the other three heroes, far fewer jinxes coming out, and this change, the game became much easier.  Mr. Fixer started the game with a Driving Mantis in hand, which was played instantly and held through most of the game. Ex. Patriot had her shotgun from turn 2. Absolute Zero was healing 4 points a turn (A glass jaw, Cyro Chamber, Focused Aperture, plus his two modules) to keep the rest of the party safe from damage.  |0| had an impale running which by the end of the game was doing 4 points a turn (Cyro + FA). Fanatic and Ex. Pat were doing a consistent 2 and 4 points a turn, plus whatever extra few points from one-shots.  Mr. Fixer was his point of damage, but redirecting one or two of Kismet’s.  I tend to count redirected damage double, so he was keeping up with my “heavy hitters” just fine.

Absolute Zero ended the game by blowing up the chamber to take him to two hit points.

In retrospect, the biggest difference was the lack of Jinx cards. In the previous game, Kismet drew the one-shot that pulled H+1 cards and extracted all the jinxes from them.  Twice.

I believe that Cryo only increase the cold damage that AZ takes, it doed not buff his attacks against anyone else. I don't mean to be picky, because I think what you are doing is very interesting, but I know a lot of the people in my group make the same mistake.  What would be interesting is if you could impale yourself to get a constant source of healing going.  Though that probably wouldn't be as useful as the damage.

Unimproved? I'm starting to think I am the only one who prefers base Absolute Zero. Guess it is my self destructive playstyle that makes me enjoy it so much.

You are not the only one.

I'm also a big fan of regular Absolute Zero, and much more so than of his Wrathful alter ego. 

oh - by all means be picky.  I'd rather lose getting all the bits right than win missing inconvenient bits. I'll check the card tonight if I can and let you know. That said, as you brought it up as a previously researched point I find it more likely I played it wrong.

Playing the game solo, as I have for all the games listed thus far, I find it very easy to make mistakes such as these.  My only is the about balance out.

Ronway – I find AZEM is a much easier character to play.  While I often enjoy deeply layered characters such as |0|, Argent Adept, or Nightmist, there’s sometimes something to be said for just being able to run a character without being wholly awake. I probably should have mentioned that I ran game 3 on about 4 hours of sleep at 4:00 a.m., while cursing insomnia. 

I’m more used to |0|^1, but I’ll only hand him to people who say they want a challenging character. So far, the only two people who’s played my copy of AZ are (1) a PhD ABD Student, and (2) a PhD.  I may have oversold the complexity of Absolute Zero.

I hope to have game 5 vs. Akash’Bhuta tonight.

I prefer the regular Absolute Zero myself, though I can see where people would prefer the promo version.  I like playing AZ as a tank early/mid game (and except for REALLY bad luck, it should be pretty easy to get setup) so I usually take the standard AZ, but if I know we have a team with lower damage output I'll occasionally take the Elemental Wrath one.

Playing original AZ is what made me fall in love with the game in the first place.

Gotta agree that I also prefer Original AZ.

Even when the opponent is immune to damage, DR, or will rebuttle. Original AZ still has the option to heal which is quite useful for tanking. 

We tried a game today, ex-Pat, Bunker, Fixer, AZ (that order) vs. Gloomweaver, in Insula Primis.

We got slaughtered. Strength of the Grave came out on the first villain turn, so basically six damage to all four heroes. Ex-Pat took it out with the RPG launcher, but the damage was already done by her turn and it all went downhill from there.

The Grimoire and Drum came out on turns 2 and 4. That was enough to keep anybody from getting any real momentum. Toss in Cultists, the Following card, and a voodoo pin on Fixer.

Fixer and Ex-pat both had decent draws, but had to lose the cards to the relics. Bunker got out a first-turn Ammo Drop and a second-turn Recharge Mode, and he was doing about as well as anyone. AZ couldn't really keep up, either.

The environment didn't have a huge impact, but there were a few annoyances.

Turn 8, 27 minutes, it was all over.

In fairness, most teams might have had a problem with that series of draws.

We finally beat Kismet for the first time today, hooray! That's our fourth game against her in total, I think. Managed to keep the Jinxes under control with an early copy of Sarabande, but started getting whittled away at later when that bloody Lady Luck card came out and took several rounds to finally destroy (with multiple attempts of both Blinding Speed and Sarabande of Destruction before we finally drew a Lucky card and could trash Lady Luck). Everyone survived, but the Adept was on 1hp in the final turn.

Gislef -

This experiement has demonstrated to me that a bunch of slow characters are in trouble.  In this I'm not saying that these characters are especially bad individually, but they make for a tough team with which to win.  As a follow up, I think I'm going to try Unity, OmniX, Argent Adept and someone else well regarded but requiring a lot of build up in the same scenario. 

Also looks like a very tough draw from Gloomy.

Real life interferred with my game playing, but I hope to try our heroes against AB either tomorrow or Tuesday. I don't know how much I fear the character, but I hate how long the games often feel.

We ran a second game. This time it was Fixer - Bunker - Ab Zero - Ex-Pat. Gloomweaver again, but in the Realm of Discord. 16 turns (!!), 1:02 minutes.

We had a better darw this time. Basically the bad guy developed much slower, no relics or major cult leaders until later on. So we got the time to build up. Fixer was still pretty good off the bat: he got the cards he needed pretty earlier on. AZ didn't get any Modules, but he got Glaciers on the first and second turns, drew the three extra cards per turn, and picked up Null Point on the third. Ex-Pat did good early on. Bunker was slow and steady, got Ammo Dump down early, and kept the Gatling Gun going until the traditional Omni-Cannon 30+ damage blast to Gloomy to win the game.

Realm of Discord was pretty easygoing. We kept Time Flies going for several turns thanks to Bunker's foam. The main pain was the Distortion that makes every non-hero target but the lowest HP invulnerable to damage. It took us three turns to RPG Launcher it away, or the game would have been over three turns earlier.

None of the heroes were anywhere close to incap by the game's end. AZ was cooking (freezing) on all burners, Bunker had his plating down, and Fixer was using the style that lets him redirect damage of 2<. Ex-Pat was the lowest.

So I'd agree that slow buildup is key to Bunker, as always. Ex-Pat, it helped, since she played two Unloads with Pride, Prejudice, SMG, and Tactical Shotgun (and a Hollow Point tossed in on the last two in the first Unload). I don't think AZ is that slow a build: Glacier and the search card do well. Fixer can vary: he always seems to be either you get what you want early, or you spend the whole game waiting for it.

I'll want to try a few other games, of course: Plague Rat next? But so far the main downsides are pretty much what has been noted: no deck manipulation (well, Bunker's foam, I suppose), limited removal of ongoings and environment, fairly weak search cards.

Untiy does not take a lot of time to build up when O-X is top-decking her bots/equipment directly into play for her.  The times I've played with this pair have been cake walks.

Also, Argent Adept is Unity's second-best buddy, and Argent and Omnitronks both have ways of speeding up setup.

Oh – yuck.  A pair made in Heaven, then.  Wait.  That's moving toward the 'shipper thread elsewhere in the forum.  I hadn't thought of that combination.  I've played OmniX a small number of times, but it is one of my partners in defeating crime's favorites so not as much as I'd like.

Game 5 –Absolute Zero, Bunker, Mr. Fixer and Fanatic Vs. Akash'Bhuta in the Ruins of Atlantis

Statistical Results - Heroes lose.  AB was at 37 Hit Points at end of game

MVP – Toss up between the Entomb card or the Environment's targets

Fun - 3/5

Danger 4/5

Shining Moment – The continual feeding of the Kraken on various Primeval Limbs.

The game generally was going the heroes way until the last two rounds when things went kablewie on them. The general plan of using Bunker's grenade launcher and Mr. Fixer's jack handle to weaken limbs so that Fanatic could take them out was doing just fine. The ruins pulled two Kraken tentacles, which were left in place to destroy the limbs and give AB the feedback damage.

By the third to last round, the stats were along the lines of AB-39, Mr. Fixer 10, AZ 8, Bunker 4, and Fanatic 3.  Fanatic had just pulled Absolution and Aegis with the help of the Pillars of Hercules.  My big mistake letting those the Pillars of Hercules stand. AB's deck shuffled and I found myself facing two entombs, no limbs, and some upset tentacles.

In retrospect, I probably should have tried to play the game conservatively.  I tend to think of both |0| and Fanatic as aggressive attackers, with very little thought towards hit points. If I had used Absolute Zeroes abilities to consistently heal instead of choosing to do damage, the game would have been in a different place.

I'll probably try it again just to see.  Otherwise, I'll see how the team fares against Gloomweaver.

Akash'Bhuta gets insanely nasty if you let Pillars of Hercules in play for too long. It's her slow output rate that makes her fairly easy, that's why she gets increasingly more difficult in environments with lots of targets or plenty of ways to pull out targets (Final Wasteland, Silver Gulch, and The Block) giving those extra plays can make her extremely nasty. Plus those decks tend to reshuffle quite a bit because of it, so it will make it when you destroy all those targets she starts playing more cards again.

I don't think playing recklessly was the problem in your game, it was leaving those pillars in play.

On the other hand, if she has out loads of limbs and Fanatic has an End of Days in hand... >:)

Game 2 - Absolute Zero, Bunker, Mr. Fixer, Expatriette vs. Citizen Dawn at Insula Primis

Statistical Results: Hero win after 16 turns, 42 minutes. AZ was the only one standing at the end of the game.

MVP - AZ, plus River of Fire

Fun: 3/5

Danger: 4/5

Shining Moment: AZ healing off of Citizen Winter and River of Fire. He crawled up to 29 and then never really went down below 20 for more than a turn.

The heroes pretty much just went down due to decimation. Devastating Aurora had its usual unpleasant effects, costing Expat a tac shotgun, Pride, and Prejudice. She never really recovered from that.

Bunker was doing well but just wasn't able to get the healing and armor out in time. Kept losing his Ammo Drop, and never got an Omni-Cannon. Fixer did okay but lost his Style that let him redirect damage on the second turn, after he played it on the first turn. He probably would have survived except for that.

Basically AZ dominated. Once the other heroes went down, they gave very nice Incapacitated abilities to keep him going. Card draw, trash recovery, use a power, play a card, the occasional ongoing removal.

Gislef -- Good stuff! 

I'm working my way up from the bottom of the statistical heap of villians to make sure I don't miss one, and that's not at all how you're doing it. At my still moderate level of play, I find Dawn a challenge with a hand-picked group of favorites. I will have to see if I can maintain momentum when I get to the "A" league villains like Dawn, Iron Legacy, Voss, and The Chairman. The Bush League heroes may not have what it takes against these guys.  On the other hand, Voss' gene-bound soldiers seems tailor made for Ex-Patriot and Mr. Fixer.

"Please Jack Handle, Harmony & Grease Monkey Fist..."

I was kind of going with villians you hadn't done yet, as well as whatever catches my eye. Hadn't played Citizen Dawn in a while...

We've never had huge amounts of trouble with Dawn. She's tougher than Voss, because of Devastating Aurora and the interaction between her Citizens that Voss' minions don't have. Granted, in her first turn in uber/flip mode, she drew two Citizens, and we just let them sit and she flipped back next turn. So her invulnerability didn't last long.

She probably would have been tougher without River of Fire helping AZ. That, and Citizen Winter: once the other three heroes went down, we just left Winter in play since he was a healing machine for AZ. And once Dawn's HP dropped below AZ, the T-Rex kept chewing on her, while the Raptors went after her minions.

Checking the new stat sheet from Lynxfox, we'll probably play Omnitron, Ennead, and Voss next, since we haven't registered any games against them.

After Fixer gets his DR and redirect out, remember whenever you get multi-target attacks (Grenade Launcher, Expat's gun that hits 3 for 2, AZ's "hit 3 for cold damage," etc.) to point one at Fixer if you want to hit the same target twice.

With this group, Iron Legacy would come entirely down to card draw, since there's both raw damage and ongoing destruction available. If you don't draw solid damage or ongoings, you're going down quickly. (With most other villains, if you get poor card draw, you have a chance at stalling until you get the right cards, but there's no stalling Iron Legacy without ongoing destruction :-p)

Game 3 - Absolute Zero, Mr. Fixer, Expatriette, Bunker vs. Grand Marshal Voss at Rook City

Statistical Results: Hero loss after 6 turns, 19 minutes.

MVP - Mr. Fixer, Jack Handle + any damage type/+1 damage style. When Bunker went down, his Incap. power let Fixer play a Grease Gun he had drawn at the end of his turn to keep the game going a turn later, but that was about it.

Fun: 2/5

Danger: 4/5

Shining Moment: None, really. Mr. Fixer got his style/tool out early and took out Minions as quickly as they came out. That was about it.

AZ never got out a Module (and only the Fire one) until Turn 5. Expatriette no gun until Turn 4. She did get Speed Load out, so she was using Sub Machine with Hollow Points and did some hurting until Turn 6. Bunker got out a Grenade Launcher, played a Foam Grenade one turn, and was the first one to go down on Turn 4. He didn't get out an Ammo Dump or Recharge Mode, either one of which would have put him in the running. Fixer was droppng minions left and right, which would have given Bunker the cards he needed off of an Ammo Dump.

Two Toxic Sludges pretty much took out the group, along with lots of "2 damage to everyone" minions. The TSs certainly hurt, but the bad draws and lack of search would have probably doomed the team in any case.

Will probably try again with a different environment. Even with Rook City, this seemed like this could have been a win if AZ had gotten set up and Expat had a gun during her first turn or two. Fixer was basically carrying water for all three teammates. :(

Game 4 - Mr. Fixer,Absolute Zero, Expatriette, Bunker vs. Grand Marshal Voss at Pike Industrial

Statistical Results: Hero win after 13 turns, 36 minutes. Expat incapacitated around turn 9.

MVP - Mr. Fixer, who pretty much hit all of his combos. He got Jack Handle on the first turn, went for one of the extra damage style early on, but switched to Driving Mantis when Voss flipped. Since Fixer was low HP, he kept redirecting the flipped Voss' 2 damage. Lab Rats never did more than two damage, so Fixer was pretty much immune to harm for the rest of the game. Played several Tool Boxes, got Harmony out, pretty much ruled.

Close second to AZ, whose Sub-Zero Whatever kept the Minions from doing anything. Ever. And really to Expat, since when she was Incapacitated, she'd give her +1 Projectile power to Fixer to kick up to a 2 damage (he had Harmony running) and knock things out.

Fun: 4/5

Danger: 3/5

Shining Moment: None really. Minions kept coming out, Fixer kept mowing them down.

Like I thought, this team is pretty well-suited to taking on Voss. AZ's Sub-Zero pretty much negates Forced Deployment. The Jack Handle lets Fixer take them out as quick as they come. The Vat that changes all damage to Toxic kept AZ from operating at full effectiveness, but it didn't come until late in the game. AZ's healing and high HPs basically cancelled out flipped-Voss' high-HP attack, and Fixer's Driving Mantis cancelled/redirected out the low-HP attack.

An early draw of both the Lieutenant and the Minion that prevent damage slowed things. That's when Fixer went for the extra damage style and took them out. Then he switched to Driving Mantis. The -1 damage vat came out later which also slowed things down, but not enough, and the +1 damage/Toxic vat cancelled it out two turns later anyway.

Expat is still the weak spot here with Flak Jacket as a poor man's damage prevention. It's conditional and one-shot. Fixer can redirect, AZ can heal, Bunker can armor plate and Recharge Mode and use his healing device. There's no "heal other" powers in the Losers Team, so she just keeps getting nailed by all the "least HP target" stuff. Including Lab Rats. She did well while she was up, thanks to an early Assault Rifle draw and some incendiary rounds. Her 1 projectile damage Incap power kept going to Fixer, he'd keep boosting it, things would keep dropping.

Anyhoo, AZ's Cold Snap, Impale, and Forced Apertures kept whittling Voss down, after Fixer cleared the field first in turn order. Plus Fixer Jack-Handling/Harmonying Voss along the way. I think we had three vat explosions, and while they hurt the heroes, they hurt Voss as well. That left it to Bunker to do the traditional Omni-Cannon coup de grace. Along with Turret Mode, Flak Cannon, and a discarded power cell for a Grenade Launcher.

Sub-Zero Atmosphere doesn't negate Forced Deployment. All that happens is that they deal their damage at the start of the Villain turn instead of the end, and if Absolute Zero goes down then you're really in trouble.

Gislef -

Great posts. I assume you meant that Sub-zero atmosphere slowed the the minions long enough for Mr. Fixer to flatten them.  I hope to get to my rematch soon.  It's been a bad week for free time.

It doesn't directly negate, but as I described in the article, it essentially negates it by delaying the minion attacks for one turn. Mr. Fixer makes toast out of them. I never saw a minion do damage again once SZA came out, and it wouldn't have happened without SZA. I consider that "negate" for all practical purposes.

And AZ is usually the last person to go down on the Loser's team. So if he goes down, you're in trouble because the game is over.

I didn't get Ammo Dump out the second game, either. A multi-attacking extra-damage Fixer + Ammo Dump for Bunker is a pretty unbeatable combo. SZA on top of that was heh icing on the cake. With Ammo Dump, at that point Forced Deployment becomes a liability for Voss. SZA makes sure they never do any damage, Fixer knocks them down, and Bunker draws tons of cards for Omni-Cannon and Gatling Gun. Then Forced Deployment just lets Fixer take them out again so Bunker can draw a second time for all them off of Ammo Dump.

As I noted in another thread, Voss is too predictable for his own good. Three HP for each minion, more often than not that's exactly what you're dealing with and can plan accordingly with Fixer. Unless the damage reduction lt. and minion come out, you know exactly what it takes to takes them out.

Well, in general, that's correct, but not when Minions come back because of Forced Deployment, since Forced Deployment pops at the start of the Villain turn.

I was thinking that - Forced Deployment acts at the start of the turn, bringing Minions back. Sub-Zero Atmosphere makes all villain end-of-turn things act at the start. If Forced Deployment has just gone off, it's still the start of the turn, so all the Minions then get to act immediately. Sub-Zero Atmosphere only negates the damage dealt by any Minions who come out during the play phase, since they have to wait a whole round before they can do anything. So unless you can destroy Forced Deployment early and take out the resultant Minions before Voss's go, you're gonna be getting hit ;).

Even better is if AZ dies due to the damage from a Sub-Zero Atmosphere'd minion, SZA gets discarded and all the minions revert to end of turn triggers and can attack you again in the same turn!

Then we may certainly have been playing it wrong, although I'll need to go over the cardt ext.

Game 5 - Mr. Fixer, Expatriette, Bunker, Absolute Zero vs. Plague Rat at Pike Industrial

Statistical Results: Hero win after 13 turns, 26 minutes. everyone except Bunker down turn 8

MVP - Bunker.

Bunker got Recharge Mode and Ammo Dump on first turn. Played Ammo Dump, Recharge on the 2nd, built up. Of course, against Plague Rat, Ammo Dump didn't do much. :( He got out his Maintenance Unit and Plating, while everyone else went slowly but inevitably down. Everyone was infected by turn 7. Fixer got some mileaeg out of Driving Mantis, but he eventually went down. Irradiated Vat meant that AZ had his Null Point fairly early but couldn't use it. Expat had some decent weaponry out, but the usual problems with dealing with damage took her down.

After that, everyone Incap's power worked well. Bunker built up OmniCannon and used his power each turn to heal w/Maintenance Unit. Expat and AZ also let him use MU to heal, so he was getting back 6 a turn, keeping up with Infection and Plague Rat's irreducible. The plating protected him from the rest. Fixer either removed Ongoings or gave Bunker card draw. Fixer and Expat had knocked Plague Rat down to the 30s, and Bunker eventually fired a 31-point Omnicannon, a 4 flak cannon, healed himself again, and then AZ gave Bunker a power-use to fire the Flak Cannon again and take Plague Rat down.

Fun: 4/5

Danger: 4/5

Shining Moment: Bunker taking the game as above.

Game 6 –Fanatic, Mr. Fixer, Bunker and Absolute Zero Vs. Akash'Bhuta in the Final Wasteland

Statistical Results - Heroes win comfortably. 

MVP – Fanatic, with a few 7-point turns when they were just needed, and then a well-timed “End of Days”.   Mr. Fixer gets the runner up for jack handling many limbs to weak enough so they could be picked off easily.

Fun - 4/5

Danger - 3/5

Shining Moment – “I’ll take End of Days for 70 HP, Alex”

This was probably the most fun I’ve ever had with Akash’Bhuta.  While there were many moments where I felt that things could have gone very bad, the heroes had just enough ongoing destruction to remove the entombs before they could do their 16 points of damage. (4 heroes, 4 points each).  The Final Wasteland was quite friendly to AB, being so target rich.  Ugh.  Sounds like a bad line from “Top Gun”. 

A card that brought out many limbs could have been much worse than it was.  It caused a good amount of damage for a turn, but Fanatic was sitting on an “End of Days”.  While I know that the ~70 hp limb buster not that uncommon in a Fanatic/AB fight, it was lovely to see.  Absolute Zero was a beast of a tank, healing from turn 2 and recovering fairly quickly from the Fanatic board clearer. He only did one significant attack the whole game, but it did a combined 25 points of damage.  I’m double dipping some of the damage, by counting the limb damage to AK in this total.  It was only a 13 point hit points from |0|, taking 6 in the process.  Mr. Fixer had a great game, having the Jack Handle and Grease Monkey fist to do 2 points of damage to everything from turn 3. Some ongoing destruction kept him from doing it every turn, but it was very consistent.  As I type this, I realize that everyone had a pretty nice game. Bunker had a Flak Cannon out early, which was a nice, solid 3 points.  The Omni-cannon did it’s job blowing up limbs when needed.  Thankfully, only 4 to 6 points of damage were necessary to remove a limb. 

I had a very interesting situation where the Mongolian Sandworm was the last card in the environment’s deck.  I drew it and then, at the start of the turn, it did its thing a return to the empty draw deck.  Worked until a target came from AB’s deck.  With another villain, the Mongolian Sandworm would have stuck around potentially for a long, long time.

The next game will be against Gloomy.

Ammo Drop can be pretty good against Plague Rat, given the number of Ongoing cards he has.

The only villain can think of where Ammo Drop is completely useless is against the Enead since they have no ongoings or targets.

Except the Losers team doesn't have a lot of ongoing removal, until Fixer drops.

Absolute Zero can drop 3 at a go, and Expatriette is moderately well supplied with RPG Launchers.

Don't forget Fanatic has Consecrated Ground. There is plenty of ongoing destruction!

We're not using Fanatic in the Loser test runs we're playing.

No RPG Launchers in the Plague Rat game, and if Expat had drawn them, it would have probably been used on the Vat environments. I think AZ managed to drop 2 in one play and that was it before he dropped.

So i'm miss reading Game 6 then in this very same page?

Me and Amnanaidch are on separate tracks. He's been mixing in Fanatic for four out of five of the bottom five. I've just been using the bottom four.

My game 6.  Gisef is running the four bottom most.  I'm running the bottom 5. 

It was never a conversation about only Gisef games, was it? It was the Losers team which I thought would include both of your games, which would than hold Fanatic. Unless I am misreading something here.

My intention was to use typically 4 of the bottom 5 non-alternate heroes through the villains, from bottom to top until I feel like I'm not doing well enough to justify the continued experiment, the games become uninteresting, or squirrel.  Gislef has been posting his similar games.  The primary difference seems to be Gislef’s loser team is only the bottom 4 ever, while I will often use Fanatic because I sometimes find Bunker and Ex. Patriot a little dull to play at times.

Doing this has really increased my appreciation of 3 of the heroes, |0|, Fanatic, and Mr. Fixer.

Well, no, it wasn't just about me. But your response seemed to be about my comment that only my team didn't have enough ongoing removal. And I wasn't including Fanatic or speaking to the other team.

Apologies for the confusion. Basically, I'm only analyzing the performance of the four I'm using. So if someone responds by pointing out something any other hero has, it won't be applicable.

I can't speak to Fanatic, although I may include her in future. I'm fine with Expat, so I don't see any pressing need to sub her out.

But yes, I've also learned a few things with AZ and Fixer. I like looking at the dynamic with Expat as far as her mix of Rounds and Guns and Reload and Speed Rounds, so am still working with her.

Just a tip about Abz that you folks may or may not know. You do not need modules in play for Absolute Zero to be effective. Having them in play makes him more effective.

Once a module is out I would focus on making that module better rather than getting the other out. If you want to do damage you'll want Isothermic Transducer, Focused Aperatures, and Thermal Shockwave. Personally I tend to wait for Null-point onces Abz get below 15. Cryo Chamber will enter play once he gets below 10. For tanking however you would want Null-Point, Focus Aperatutes, and Cryo Chamber. You can toss in Isothermic and Thermal Shockwave latter and begin to also start dealing small damage also.

Yep, the fire module is rarely critical, since there's enough ice-damaging stuff even without it.

My point is that neither is critical though.

My peronal favorite playing style is having Isothermic, Focused Aperatures, Thermal Shockwave, Cold Snap, and Impale because of how much damage he is able to produce in single turn. Though he doesn't always last much longer afterwards as he takes so much damage aswell.

Coolant Blast with AZ against Mad Bomber is always fun.
Especially with Isothermic module out.

Game 5 (track 2) - Mr. Fixer, Absolute Zero Elemental Wrath, Expatriette, Bunker Engine of war vs. Omnitron at Time Cataclysm

Statistical Results: Hero loss after 10 turns. Expat and Bunker went down on Turn 8.

MVP - Nobody really, it was knd of a blah game.

Fun: 2/5

Danger: 4/5

Shining Moment: None really.

We've never found Omnitron to be a Difficulty 1, unless you're cherry-picking heroes to fight him, and this game was no exception. Like the AI machine he is, Omnitron is boring, but brutal and relentless. Every turn there was something we had to deal with it, that took up enough resources that all we could do was stay even and maybe inflict a little damage on him directly. About the time we were could handle him, out came Tech Singularity. He ended the game with 75 HP.

Yes, we tried Engine of War and Elemental Wrath variants for a little variety. AZ's is okay, but Bunker's, not so much. He really needs card draw, and he didn't get Ammo Dump or Recharge Mode until late in the game when it was too late. He did remove one Adaptive Plating card, but that was it. Yes, he can remove Ongoings, and he's got... nine? cards to do it with. But any given time you really need one of those and can't afford to give it up. Or it's going to cost you if you do give it up.

The adaptive plating was, as always, annoying. We used random positioning, so having our two Projectile Weapon folks back-to-back didn't help. We took out the plating twice (Engine of War, and then Fueled Freeze later), but it slowed us down. Not that we had a lot of time to hit Omni directly anyway.

Yes, Omnitron isn't much fun with Tech Singularity. We got hit by it, took 2 (Fixer) to 8 (AZ, Expat) damage each. A second one came up the same turn, so we got lucky there. it hurt mostly Expat, who had four guns on the board and was building up to a nice Unload. The damaeg and card loss hurt, but it wasn't a critical factor in our loss. We had backups for most of it. it just took time away as we rebuilt, and then it was over before we got back to that point.

The main factor was the Time Catclysm. The Computer came out and although we appreciated the extra draw, Omni getting an extra draw _before_ his villain turn doomed us. The Computer kept drawing "start of the turn" damage components, which would then almost immediately go off. We didn't have enough resources to put into attacking it, and never drew a RPG Launcher, so we gambled that it wouldn't hit us with start-of-turn components. We lost that gamble three times, and got Distint Ray and Rail Gun'ed into oblivion. :(

Generally Omnitron was strong enough in this game that it wasn't the low-ranking heroes that were the reason for the win, but just that he was getting all the good draws. The Computer gave him three draws (or two draws and a component/drone recovery, which is kind of a draw) a turn, and that was too much to handle.

Against Omnitron, Expatriette just shouldn't be building up guns. One gun + one Flak Jacket is the way to go. If your first gun is Pride or Prejudice you can play its match, but otherwise don't do it.

She didn't really have anything else to play. I did get a Flak Jacket out, yes. And had a Unload in my hand. But otherwise it was a gun-heavy series of draws.

Basically it was a toss-up on whether to gamble she got an Unload off before Tech Singularity came out. The Flak Jacket was lost to a drone. :(

Problem is that assumes an optimal draw. If all you have useful on your first turn is, say, Submachine Gun, do you play it and do something? Or do you sit there for a turn and twiddle your thumbs because I had Reload, Unload, and Speed Rounds?

Or in the game in question, I drew Tac Shotgun on the first turn. Great! But on the second turn, the targets started multiplying and that Assault Rifle in my hand became a lot more useful to have out. Then on the third turn I had Prejudice.

Once you play the guns, you can't get rid of them. Normally you wouldn't want to, but against Omnitron as you say, you do. Or forego that flexibility in the first place. Expat is like Fixer in that she has weapons and ammo to deal with a wide range of situations. But she has to keep them all out, which in Omnitron/Tech Singulrity's case is a downside.

Game 6 (track 2) - Expat, Bunker, AZ Elemental, Fixer vs. Omnitron at Megalopolis

Statistical Results: Hero loss after 7 turns. Most people were gone on Turn 5. Fixer stayed out until turn 6. Expat went down on Turn 7.

MVP - Nobody really, it was knd of a blah game. Expat stayed alive because of two consecutive Flak Jackets.

Fun: 1/5

Danger: 4/5

Shining Moment: None really.

Well, we wanted to see if Game 5 was a fluke. It wasn't. :( An early Tech Singularity hurt, but mainly it was just difficult to keep up against the damage being dealt.  EMP came out on Turn 1, and you really have to dedicate your time to taking that out. Meanwhile, Megalopolis was dealing out the cards that prevent hero powers and card play, and components were hitting the board. Turns 2 and 4, Omni had no components or drones in his deck, but that was about our lucky break. If you want to call it that, since they were on the board. Sedative Flechettes on the fist turn meant we didn't lose Ongoings, but the early hit didn't help either. Between five points from that and six points from an EMP device, everyone was down 11 by the beginning of turn 2. It just went downhill from there. We took out the EMP, but another one came out.

We didn't get any drone draws in the first five turns (and then just the healing one), so that may have hurt us. When you're trying to take out an EMP device, and trying to do the seven damage to Omni to remove the components, and work around the Adaptive Plating, it all becomes very problematic.

Game 7 (track 2) - Engine Bunker, AZ, Expat,Fixer vs. Omnitron at Megalopolis

Statistical Results: Hero loss after 8 turns. Game was going good until Turn 8, then EMP device took out almost everyone.

MVP - Expat and Fixer kept hitting.

Fun: 2/5

Danger: 4/5

Shining Moment: None really.

Last Omni game, we promise! We actually had this one more or less under control. Yes, we got hit by Flechettes and Tech Singularity. But the environment worked for us, because we let the Kraken pick off the drones and EMP device, and Mystical Weaponry helped pick off the others (as well as giving us that little boost we needed to do the 7 damage to Omni to remove his components). Drones and Components were coming out evenly. Adaptive Plating never came out.

Turn 7, Omni was down to 55, we were in the 10-16 range-wise, and... Atlantean Font of Power came out. And it drew an EMP device. which immediately triggered at the start of Omni's Turn 8. Everyone dropped except AZ, he went to 1 HP, and a drone finished him off.

If not for that, we probably could have won. We could have dealt with the EMP if it had come out normally and hadn't triggered until the beginning of Turn 9. Or if Fixer had played a Grease Gun on general principles on Turn 7 just previously (we haven't seen one in games 6 or 7). Or maybe even if Expat had a Flak Jacket out: she used one earlier and lost another to Tech Singularity. If she had been standing, and bought AZ time to heal by taking the drone damage, the game might have gone on.

As we posted a long time ago, we'd really dispute that Omni is Difficulty 1. You can handle him with consistent mass-attacking, or deck manpulation. Or extra damage boosting (Legacy). But we've lost to him with "better" heroes. And the Loser Squad just doesn't seem to have what it takes.

Game 8 (track 2) - Elemental AZ, Rook City Wraith, Expat, Fixer vs. Apostate at The Block

The current statistical list shows Elemental AZ at the bottom, and RC Wraith. So we played with those

Statistical Results: Hero win after 13 turns.

MVP - Wraith and Throat Jabs & Stun Bolts

Fun: 3/5

Danger: 3/5

Shining Moment: Inventory Barrage for the game after removing the relics.

We had fairly good luck: none of the real Apostate combos kicked in. Everything came out about as evenly as you could hope. Wraith kept Apostate from damaging folks very much. AZ took a while to build up to his healing, but once he got Thermal Shockwave going, he was pretty solid. His irreducible damage style helped against some of the high-reduction artifacts. Expat didn't do anything massive: she drew a lot of weapons, but not so many Ammos. She did get out Flak Jackets and RPG Launchers. Never got that Unload.

I suppose the question is, is using RC Wraith unfair rather than Bunker? She is one of the four lowest rated. Why that particular one should be lower than the other two isn't clear: we rarely use her power in any incarnation. We used it on the first turn, and after that she had perfectly adequate equipment powers. Even when she produced Utility Belt a few turns later, she had plenty to do with Stun Bolt and Razor Ordinance. We typically find that the case with her other two incarnations, though.

Warden Hoefle came out early, which let us keep the inmates to the minimum. For the inevitable Prison Riot, we'd knock down the lower-HP ones and let Hoefle finish off the remaining one. The defensive Block card was probably the biggest pain.

Basically the usual for a Loser Squad win: they got some good early draws and enough time to build their combos. Apostate brings a lot of stuff back and protects what he has, but Imp Pilferer is the only thing he has that really removes things. We had the first two turns dealing with an IP and it cost Fixer a couple of style cards. After that, the IP went down. Later, we had Subzero Atmosphere out and the returning Imps didn't do anything before we took them out.

In games with bad draws you see wraith use her base powers a lot.  The other two have much nicer (and actually useful) powers.

If someone has a better use for her power please let me know, but about the only use I see is playing Chairman, when he's flipped, at Insula Primalis, with a lackey or two that won't kill you with +1 damage.  Then about the only bad card you can draw is a pterodactyl thief and it would actually be beneficial to use her power and get rid of it.

Are there enough games for Rook City Wraith and Abew for their bottom-tier standing to be statically significant?I decided against going with the alternate heroes because of the relatively low number of games and them generally being considered potentially improved versions of the original characters.

Either way, I'm enjoying reading about your games.  I haven't had much time to play, recently.

Played a game once where Rook City Wraith allowed us to play a Close Quarters Combat out of turn. The heroes got the benefit and the villains didn't. I still prefer Last Stand and regular Wraith, but there are times when playing an environment card out of turn can be really nice.

A lot of the promos don't have enough games to be statistically significant. You really can't trust the rankings on heroes with less than 100 plays or so. Wraith herself was at the bottom when stats first came out, but that was before the statistics evened out.

Well if there aren't enough games to be statistically significant for RCW and AZE, our games should help remedy that. :)

It's pretty hard to get a bad draw with Wraith, IMO. We didn't get any Impromptu Inventions until Turn 10 and we did just fine. I suppose if you only draw Barrages and Smoke Bombs on turn 1... Pretty much everything she has is consistently useful (and even Smoke Bombs are - I'm just saying they're less useful). Yeah, if you have to play one-shots for the first turn or two with no equipment-powers on the table, we'll see her core power get used. But it doesn't happen very often. We used it on Turn 1 and pulled a Block agent, and that was it.

Game 9 (track 2) - Elemental AZ, Fixer, Expat, Rook City Wraith vs. Misinformation at Pike Industrial

Statistical Results: Hero win after 6 turns.

MVP - AZ sacrificing himself on Miss Information's (psychic damage to her attacker) ability to do enough damage for Expat to do the coup de grace.

Fun: 3/5

Danger: 2/5

Shining Moment: AZ using Fueled Freeze to dispose of three Clues on the turn after MI flipped.

Random location, hadn't play against MI yet. Her clues came out early on, and Threat came out on the first turn. Folks dropped enough in-play cards that we could get rid of it on the second turn. She flipped on Turn 3, we pretty much just kept hammering her. She had 2 -1 damage Clues out, but as noted, AZ took them out and after that it was just a matter of pounding on her. The Vat that reduces damage by 1 was the biggest inhibitor.

RC Wraith never used her power. She played an IR Eyepice on the first turn and used it to avoid a vat explosion. Discarded it to get rid of "Threat." After that she just used Razor Ordinance and MT Computer.

Expat did okay on guns. She used an Unload to finish off MI on Turn 6, firing a TAC shotgun, and an Incendiary/Pride for 7.

Everybody did their part, things went pretty smooth, prtty clear we were going to win.

Looks like you made a slight error. Infrared Eyepiece can be used on the villain deck. Since it was only a six round game though you couldn't of used it incorrectly that much and probably would of pulled a victory anyways, so that's good!

No I misreported it. She buried... some Distraction and set up a minor Clue for the next draw.

Game 7 – Bunker, Fanatic, Ex-Patriot and Absolute Zero vs. Gloomweaver in the Block

Statistical Results - Heroes win comfortably, with no incapacitations.  Fanatic < 3 HP after the use of an Aegis. 

MVP – I almost want to say distributed luck. The grenade launcher and assault riffle from Bunker and Ex-Pat seems to have done the most consistent damage, but AZ’s tanking kept the game going.  Fanatic was able to have some key hits as well.  The only deck that didn’t have a fun time was Gloomweaver’s, who never drew a relic.  That said, Bunker gets the nod for drawing Ammo drop on the first turn and loving zombies almost as much as Gloomweaver, and for several turns of 6-point Omni-Cannon attacks.

Fun - 4/5

Danger - 3/5

Shining Moment – This was a very workman-like game.  The shooters shot, the crazy winged lady did crazy wing lady stuff, and Absolute Zero froze and fired. 

After some time away from these solo games, I finally got to play another bottom tier hero game today.  The heavy shooter team of Fanatic, Absolute Zero, Ex-Pat and Bunker wound up controlling Gloomweaver.  It should be said, and I think it did somewhere above, and Gloomweaver had a very tough time drawing cards that he really wanted. In the course of the game, no relics other than Fanatic’s were pulled.

So what did Gloomweaver get? Zombies, cultists and pins.  The zombies’ boosting card turned into enough damage to kill all the zombies when Absolute Zero played Fueled Freeze with focused apertures.  It didn’t seem fair, but there weren’t many available ongoings.

One questionable call that I made is with Fanatic’s final dive.  She used it to kill an Adept with 2 HP remaining.  I decided that the timing was “Destroy a card, the zombie is brought into play, the projectile damage is done”, so the adept killed the zombie.  Thematically, which is never the way to actually play the game, I figured Fanatic impaled the poor adept on a wrought iron fence or something.  Mechanically, it hardly mattered since the next turn would have had Ex-Pat doing 3 targets 2 damage anyway.

The Block hardly mattered, with the inmates and the wardens mostly shooting each other. There were at least two instances where the environment deck hit Gloomweaver or some other villain target, which was nice.  I never felt that foam grenades were Bunker’s priority.

With the updated statstics, I'll catch one of the villain decks that has now moved south.  The next game will be against the Enead.

Game 8 – Mr. Fixer, Ex-Patriot and Absolute Zero vs. the Enead in Rook City

Statistical Results - Heroes win comfortably, with no incapacitations.  Ex Pat at about 5 hit points.

MVP(s) – The non-couple from Rook City definitely were in their home element.  Once Mr. Fixer had his Jack Handle/Praying Mantis combo up (Hit every villain for 2 points or less, the first time Mr. Fixer is hit a turn if 2 or less), he and the Ex-Patriot led the Egyptian Gods a merry chase.  Mr. Stone Cold Ryan Frost did what he needed to do – mostly tanking, but was able to deliver the coup de grace.

Fun - 5/5

Danger - 3/5

Shining Moment – Each hero character had a fine moment this game, two of them early, one late.  Mr. Fixer brought up my favorite combo almost immediately and Ex-Pat’s opening hand included Quick Draw and Pride.  Even though the may not be the most efficient cards for her, I love the matched Dessert Eagles.  Absolute Zero was able heal and discard cards, getting rid of some pesky environment cards.

My daughter is 3 and requires, shall we say, additional effort.  For this reason, my Loser’s Game project got waylaid.  The good news is I’ve been able to play 2 or 3 games a week with other people.  This is an amazing amount of gaming for this period of my life.

I love playing against the Enead. While not the toughest opponents objectively, the way they seem capable of stringing attacks really makes them feel like a villain team.  Luckily for the heroes, the Enead are too powerful to use their smartphones’ calendar function.  If they could agree to show up at the same time, they’d be much harder to stop.

Based on the discussion above, it’s probably quite clear how this game went. The damage that was done to Mr. Fixer rapidly became a bane to the villains, as the Enead deck seems to do it’s damage in drips and drabs. I decided that the Environmental Storm card’s first point of damage, the lightning, was Mantis Handled to all opponents, and Mr. Fixer took the other two points.  As the storm cards came near the end of the game, the fully equipped Absolute Zero, netted a point with each of the cards. (-1 for lightning, -1 for fire, deals himself 2 points of cold to heal 2, and 1 point of cold to heal).  Ex-Pat, even though she had the Shotgun available to her, kept using weapons that did no more than 2 points, so that she could shoot Mr. Fixer.

Rook City brought a fair amount of hurt to the table this game, which surprises no one.  Scum and Villainy appeared twice, and an Enead card wipe out one of the informants immediately. As the players took damage from this effect, the mental image touched “Final Dive”, but with pieces.

Per the stats as of today, Baron Blade seems to be my next opponent.  While statistically he may be about a third of the way up the heap, I’m going to tempt fate and predict a win.

I'm sorry but I'm pretty sure that combo doesn't work that way.  When damage is redirected the target is changed but not the source so when Fixer redirects with mantis he is not doing anyone damage (the original attacker is) and therefore does not trigger Jack Handle.  Similarly this is why damage he redirects isn't buffed by tools, harmony, or any other bonuses that apply to him such as Galvanize.

Sefirit -- I'll have to check.  If it's so, I'm going to be very sad.  That said, I find it unlikely that you'd bring up the objection unelss you were fairly sure that it is correct.  I believe that the game would have still been won, but probably not as nicely.

Potential special case: when playing against Plague Rat and infected, but with praying mantis in play, Mr Fixer is meant to deal himself 2 damage but redirects. What happens then if Jack Handle is in play?

He doesn't redirect. From what I understand, instead of dealing himself the damage at all, he instead deals it out to all non-hero targets. there is nothing for him to redirect because no damage is dealt to him.

It sounds like you had the situation well in hand and so would have won anyway.  I just wanted to mention this because redirectio was the cause of some confusion when it was first implemented. 

Fixer can still redirect from allies in some cases, for example if Expat has out her Assault Rifle but only has two targets, she can make Fixer the third and he can redirect to one of the two already hit targets for a second hit.  Likewise I've seen AZ use him to be able to get some extra healing by having Fixer redirect cold damage back at him.

 These are fun to read =p.   Are you playing Advanced Mode?   How do you select your villains?   Seems like the same ones a lot of the time.  Hard to accureately judge the (un)strength of a hero vs only a handful of villains.    I wanna see Matriarch!  Chairman!  (props for doing Ennead, more props for winning).  Spite!  Plauge Rat!  Iron Legacy! Dreamer!  Capitan! 

Mea Cupa (Translation - "My coffee!" )

Sefirit - your reading is correct, and thank you.  I'm the only one of my players from whom Mr. Fixer is a top 5 grab. 

awp832 -

Thank you very much!  I've been enjoying the process and hoping that my reports have been interesting to read.  I'm playing the villains from the stastically worst villain to the stastically best, or until it gets too hard or I get bored or squirrel.  I'm playin in normal mode, with at heroes taken from the bottom 5 of the stastical heap. Right now, that means my heroe choices are Absolute Zero, Mr. Fixer, Ex-Patriot, Bunker and Fanatic.  Because the relatively few games they have, I'm not using alternate versions of characters like "Elemental Wraith", etc.  Of the bunch, I've not fallen in love with Bunker.

The Villains are in reverse order are:

Iron Legacy
The Matriarch
Cosmic Omnitron
The Chairman
The Dreamer
Citizen Dawn
La Capitan
Omnitron
Plague Rat
Grand Warlord Voss
Spite
Apostate
Mad Bomber Blade
Baron Blade
The Ennead
Akash'Bhuta
Kismet
Gloomweaver
Ambuscade
Miss Information

There's some room for things to get confused, as the list changes monthly.  This isn't scientific, but thematic.

 oh I see now,  it's not just the loser heroes, but the loser villains too.   That's even funnier =p.

Wow,  I can't believe the Ennead has been in the bottom 5 like ever.   They're so hard!   I guess advanced Ennead is a huge jump from regular Ennead, that's probably who I feel that way.  I kinda like Bunker,  but yeah,  he has his difficulties =p.

The Ennead as #6, if I've done my count right.  They were game 8, and I've lost twice against the previous opponents.  It's all on the basic level, though.  I've I was doing the advanced track, the order would be:

Iron Legacy
The Ennead
Plague Rat
The Chairman
Omnitron
Grand Warlord Voss
Miss Information
Cosmic Omnitron
The Matriarch
Citizen Dawn
The Dreamer
Baron Blade
La Capitan
Kismet
Akash'Bhuta
Gloomweaver
Mad Bomber Blade
Apostate
Spite
Ambuscade
 

Yup - much harder are the Egyptian Gods when advanced.

I guess I was doing it wrong then. So related to this- when a villain can play a card in the end phase if he plays an ongoing or a target with a end phase effect it doesn't go into effect until his next turn because it wasn't there at the start of the end phase? I see this game works differently than what I'm used to.

That comment was an offshoot of the discussion of deployment and Sub-Zero environment

I guess I was doing it wrong then. So related to this- when a villain can play a card in the end phase if he plays an ongoing or a target with a end phase effect it doesn't go into effect until his next turn because it wasn't there at the start of the end phase? I see this game works differently than what I'm used to.

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Quite the reverse. If it's played during the end-phase it is still the end phase. As you activate cards in order played, and it was played after the event that caused it to be played, it will activate when you get to it.

Even stranger, when you have AZ's ongoing out that makes things happen at Start of turn, if he dies in the middle of the villain turn, every villain card will go again at the end since their text has reverted.

If that is so then maybe I should back track. How would Sub-Zero delay the attack brought about by the Forced deployment card as Gimlef suggested? If the card is destroyed at the start of villain's turn, they come out and attack on the turn they came out.

Was she wrong?

Yes.

Sub-Zero Atmosphere delays normally played cards but not Forced Deployment

It's good against Voss's Minions, though, as they normally attack at the end of the turn. So he plays a Minion during his Play phase but if Sub-Zero Atmosphere is out, that Minion has to wait until the start of Voss's next turn before it can attack…and chances are it'll be dead by then. Ideally with Forced Deployment you'll want to destroy it ASAP after it comes out, so you have the rest of the turn to destroy all the resultant Minions before Voss's turn comes around again and you have all the dead Minions reappearing and subsequently attacking you. Sub-Zero Atmospheres would be of no help here since Forced Deployment destroys itself at the start of the turn, bringing all the Minions back…who then get to act at the start of the turn (ie, right now) due to Sub-Zero Atmospheres being out. If it wasn't out, they'd just have to wait till the end of the turn as normal and hammer you then :).

As was noted, I was wrong.

Game 9 – Mr. Fixer and Absolute Zero (H=3) vs. Baron Blade in Megolopolis

Statistical Results - Heroes lose, Earth and Moon become one

MVP(s) – Hubris.  Losers plus a two-player game equals extra hard

Fun - 4/5

Danger - 4/5

Shining Moment – The happiest moment for the heroes was probably AZ using the Baron’s various shield ongoings to turn into significant if insufficient damage.  For the Baron, it was probably drawing 2 MDPs, one laser, and a personal shield in the first five turns.

One of my regular partners in fighting crime when I play has a thread here called “Two Heroes”.  I tried, in a truly epic fit of hubris, to combine the play of our two threads. While AZ and Mr. Fixer did relatively well given a rather good start for the villain, it was simply too many hitpoints on the board for them to overcome by the time 15 cards filled the villains trash. The damage potential of AZ never completely developed, and Mr. Fixer’s damage flattened out too quickly.

I choose to believe that this was a prophetic dream, sent to someone so she could prevent this tragedy.

Game 10 – Mr. Fixer, Absolute Zero, and Fanatic (H=3) vs. Baron Blade in Megolopolis

Statistical Results - Heroes win, no incapacitations.

MVP(s) – Fanatic, with two nicely timed plays and solid consistent output.

Fun - 5/5

Danger - 5/5

Shining Moment – Fanatic had two glorious moments in the game.  The Baron had by turn 5 two MDPs, elemental converter, and a laser out, making feel like a repeat of the last game.  End of Days opened the playing field. When the Baron had 14 cards in the trash, Fanatic’s discard a card to do 2 points of damage did just enough to flip him on the environment’s turn.

This was Fanatic’s game, with some significant help from the environment deck. At the cost of one of Absolute Zero’s modules, some 27 points of defense and damage were destroyed by the end of days. The Baron’s trash pile was incredibly high, but Fanatic was able to hit him just enough for a flip at the beginning of the Environment’s turn.  It could not be closer with the cards on the table – although having Police Backup flip the Baron would have been great.

Absolute Zero did okay in the game. His one or two points to everyone every turn, plus whatever bricking he could muster, felt reasonable.

Mr. Fixer’s game was also reasonable. He best bit was, after the other heroes had managed to bring a battalion or laser to two points, destroying cards with their own damage.

I guess the characters could be summarized as “meh, meh, *whew*”

Once he was flipped, the game progressed in a routine manner.  

Next game, the Baron goes mad.

https://greaterthangames.com/forum/topic/two-heros-3781

Appologies to Mclanem, I forgot to put a link to his thread.

Looking over the hero stats, I can't help but wonder if it would look different if the hero win% was shown by how they were selected.

As we've seen in your games, a group of characters with similar weaknesses (needing cards out while having weak card destruction is a recipe for getting rolled) leaves you in a bad spot.

Bunker can be a very strong hero in the right team, one that minimizes his weaknesses (like Visionaries ongoing destruction and card draw help) and uses his strengths (Legacy + Grenade launcher is amazing).

Actually Legacy, Visionary, Bunker and Expat is a fun team, and remarkably strong.  The trouble is when you get these heroes in the wrong team.

I can't believe Fixer is as low as he is, he's really tough and gets going fast, he just has a low ceiling.  You can build a team around Ex-Pat to showcase her damage, and AZ is a lot of fun, but hard to manage.  I don't think any of them are bad (except Engine of War Bunker, he's terrible).

Is he really that tarnished without Initialize?  Ongoing destruction in a pinch can be absolutely fantastic, and it's pretty easy for him to have a couple of Mode cards in hand that won't get played.  It may be one less card for a Gatling Gun or two less damage on his Omni-Cannon, but blowing up a Return with the Dawn or Strength from the Grave when everyone else is out of Ongoing destruction can be a lifesaver.

Not to mention that you can use it in Turret Mode, where Initialize becomes useless. It also depends on how often you Initialize. For me at least, most of the time Flak Cannon or Grenade Launcher are just better, so to have that utility as option really helps.

Just for a litle comparison between the 2:

Recharge Mode: No difference

Upgrade Mode: No difference

Turrent Mode: EoW can actually help out.

No Mode:

Original Bunker can play 1 card and draw 2.

EoW can play 0 cards and draw 2

If you are using a different power, then it doesn't matter. Both can play 1 and draw 1, but EoW has that added utility.

EDIT: Playing EoW can actually help you play Original Bunker better. When you have to choose between play a card (like Heavy Plating) and only drawing 1 card, or playing none and drawing 2, it really helps you see which cards a really needed and which cards aren't. Then go back and play Original bunker, and wow, you will do great.

It took me so long to realize one of Bunkers best opening hands: Upgrade Mode, Flak Cannon, Grenade Launcher, and Turret Mode.

Turn 1: Play Upgrade Mode and Flak Cannon/Grenade Launcher.

Turn 2: Flak Cannon/Grenade Launcher and Turret mode.

Now you start pounding the villain for 7 every turn, as well as hitting for another 3 and 2. There are very few heroes that can start pumping that consistent damage so early, or get setup that quickly for that amount of damage. Sure, it will be a boring game for the player, but the villain will go down. It just took awhile for me to to realize that Bunker doesn't need to be "fully" setup to be powerful. In fact, it made him less powerful, becauase I was wasting turns (and damage) playing cards that weren't really neeeded.

I have no idea why I went into this here. Oh well.

EDIT2: Just realized why I brought it up, because Intialize isn't great if you can be doing damage with FC/GL. Even if you are drawing cards for GG/OC, the other 2 do more damage per use. Since FL/GL are essential, even if you can't play a card while drawing 2 with EoW, it is still worth it, and you aren't losing that much. So not always using initialize, but having the extra utility is great sometimes.

I like EoW Bunker pretty decently. He has nine copies of mode cards in his deck, and so he is more likely to draw mode cards than other heroes are to draw their ongoing destruction. The only thing really bad about him is that there are some villains that he's just mostly useless against, cough the Enead.

I completely agree with Pydro about his setup. Having things like Heavy Plating and Ammo Drop out while in Turret Mode is great, but not necessary to Bunker meaningfully contributing to the war effort.

Sorry, laser eye surgery and general summer slowness with our group has limited playing time.

Game 13 (track 2) - Bunker EOW, Fanatic, Fixer, Elemental AZ, vs. Ambuscade at Silver Gulch

Statistical Results: Hero win after 6 turns.

MVP - Fanatic with her whatevr card that lets her do damage = base vs. current HP

Fun: 3/5

Danger: 2/5

Shining Moment: Fanatic as above, Fixer w/Grease Gun

I'd finally picked up my Ambuscade and SG promo decks, so we were on. Ambuscade drew 2 reactive armors in the initial draw, which took three turns to burn through. We spent our first turn or two blasting through the subsequent gun-stuff that came out, then focused on the Ablative. Fortunately (?) we got Explosives Wagon at the end of the first turn, which canceled out the ablative. We took some heavy hits as a result, but it let us keep up with Amby's devices.

Once we cleared the reactive on turn 4, Fanatic was down to 10 and she unleashed her heavy-hitter for 20 damage to Ambuscade.

A Grease Gun by Fixer on turn 5 protected us from... Tyler at SGulch? Whoever machineguns everyone for 2. He hit Amby, and hit Amby's sonic mines, which we were all protected from. That plus Amby's hit-everyone device that came out on turn 6 meant the GGun negated about 40 points of damage. Nobody would have gone down on the 10 HPs each, but it made things a lot safer. Bunker omni'd Ambuscade and Fanatic plinked away his remaining damage on Turn 6, and it was game over.

Bunker EOW never got to use his power because a) Amby never played Ongoings, and b) Bunker never drew a Mode card. (Flak Cannon on the first turn meant he was a consistent heavy-hitter.) AbZero got both modules out early, and a Thermal shockwave gave him 7 HP of healing on turn 4 and more damage. Other than that, it was his base power all the way.

Fixer was a slow-steady hitter. He played the redirect damage Style on the first turn, but then Explosives Wagon came out and that one was useless. He plinked away at the non-reactive devices, played Tool Box twice, and got the Grease Gun and Duel Crowbars, which let him administer the beat-down to Amby and another device once the reactives were cleared.

Fanatic just kept hitting cards. Never did get a second power out, but kept playing the card that let her do damage and draw a card, giving her a steady stream of more cards.

The main factor in the win is that Amby just isn't that tough. Take away his reactive, and he never gets his cloaking (he didn't in this game), and 50 HPs just doesn't give him much survivability. He's the proverbial glass ninja. His lack of device destruction meant that he couldn't do much against the ongoing-equipment-heavy Loser team.

Grease Gun doesn't just protect Heroes from non-Hero targets. It protects everybody.

For some reason, I have been playing a lot of hime recently. I wanted to share some thoughts on him, as well as how I play him.

EDIT: Moved to its own thread.

Bunker.docx (33.2 KB)

With the Tyler damage negated by the grease gun, it would have only let the next hero take him out, so no biggy.

Game 14 (track 2) - Elemental AZ, Fixer, Bunker EOW, Expat vs. Ennead at Ruins of Atlantis

Statistical Results: Hero win after 8 turns.

MVP - Expat for the consistent heavy-hitter, AZ once he was incapacitated

Fun: 3/5

Danger: 3/5

Shining Moment: An incapacitated AZ immobilizing the Environmental deck

Going through villain/environment what we haven't done yet. AZ had horrible draws and got none of his modular stuff (or his card to get modular stuff. As such, he really didn't do much. At least he could do a little damage. if it had been  his base version... ugh.

Fixer got his steady 3-damage combo down and just pretty much kept running it. He started with Duel Crowbars, lost that, went with Jack Handle. Harmony, +1 damage-any-type Style, and that brought her home.

Bunker EOW did almost nothing until the last round. Grenade Launchered until he lost that. Grenades the Enviro deck once. If there's no ongoings out, his power is pretty much a waste. He got down an Omni-Cannon on 7, loaded three cards into it on 8, and finished off the last Ennead. Low hand size kept him from putting down the Gatling Gun. He picked up three cards on Ammo Drop when the first three Ennead went down.

Expat was a steady hitter throughout. She got out the Tac Shotgun, lost the Tac to an Ennead destruction card, got out Pride and then Prejudice, Flak Jacketed a couple of times, RPG launchered the phosphorerent chamber. Nepthys was the first to be incapacitated, and her incap power to lose one card per turn kept Expat from drawing and keeping any cards. :(

Our main winning points were bad luck for the Ennead. They a) never drew any of their "bring out more Ennead" cards, b) were primarily green and black, and c) we drew mostly red cards. It was pretty much a straight shooting match, and even with Bunker kinda useless, we outshot them.

The Kraken came out on the first turn, but we finessed it to make sure an Ennead member was always low on the totem pole until turn 5. We lost AZ to it then. As for the enviro deck, once AZ went down on Turn 5, he kept using his incap power on the enviro deck and we just avoided whatever trouble that could have caused. The Ennead Incap that takes out the non-character card with the lowest hitpoints destroyed the Kraken, Expat took out the Chamber, and we shot up the Mystical Weaponry.

Gislev,

Nice!  I may start using Bunker EOW soon.  Between the alternate character and Pydro's analysis, he be redeemed.

Well, I was going by Least Effective Heroes. Or Most Incapacitated, as it's the same thing.

We're really not very impressed with the EOW version. It's conditional on a) the villain having Ongoings, and b) EOW having the Modes when he needs him.

The Modes are almost a quarter of the deck. I've found him very effective against Iron Legacy.

If he draws them on the first turn or two. After that, EoW probably won't be long enough to do much of anything, especially if he gave up his power use on the other two turns. :)

This happened the other day - I chose EoW Bunker against Iron Legacy and drew a Turret Mode in the first turn, which I ditched to get rid of one of Lgacy's ongoings. The fact that I didn't see another Mode card for the rest of the game (about four or five more rounds) meant that I couldn't destroy the Superhuman Redirection he had out...which meant Fanatic couldn't use her Wrathful Retribution on him when she was down to 5hp. The third character in the party was Tempest. Neither of those guys got out their ongoing destruction either.

Also, EOW is giving up his power phase to destroy an ongoing. Most folks (exempting... Visionary? and one or two others I"m sure I'm forgetting) give up their play phase to destroy an ongoing and then use their power on the power phase.

Someone playing a card to remove one of IL's ongoing still has a power.

If EOW is dedicating his power phase to removing the ongoing, either a) he played an Ongoing/Limited during his turn to give him a power, which he can't use that turn because he removed the IL ongoing, or b) is using one of his other one-shots. Which are nice but really aren't huge game-changers, IMO. Especially against IL. Bunker's plating is probably his best bet. Not to say those one-shots aren't useful...

Being a power helps so that he can use it while it Turret Mode. Also, he isn't giving up his power phase, he is giving up 1 power use. With Turret Mode or APS, he can still use another power. While this is a specific case, Bunker can single-handily take out Blade's full hp MPD and Backlash Field by himself in a single turn.

This power might also be better to use anyway. If destroying a specific Ongoing will drastically increase you survivability and thereby increase your overall damage, it will probably be better than using another power anyways.

Not entierly. If he plays Gatling Gun, Omni-Cannon, or Auxiliary Power Source, he didn't lose anything by the loss of a power.

Actually, since he is immune to environment damage, playing Adhesive Foam Granade isn't such a bad idea. Also, External Combustion essentially gives you the damage that you loss (obviously, if you have to see if taking 2 damage is worth it).

I am not trying to say that the power is great, everyone has their own opinion (and I am not saying mine). However, there are a couple things to keep in mind.

1. Not every hero uses their base power every turn of every game. There are many heroes that can very quickly put down a power that is better than their base. You shouldn't be thinking that Bunker should be using it every turn, but having that extra utility when you need it can be very helpful.

2. The question is whether the loss of Initialize worth the Ongoing destruction. This is up to each individual player, and how often they use Initialize. If they depend on it, then this can be a big hit. If the don't, becuase they are using damage dealing powers, then just having the option of more utility can be a big help.

3. Giving a damage dealer a way to get rid of Ongoings at will would be very OP. Therefore, he needs a Mode card in his hand. Sometime it works, sometimes it doesn't. There is no difference between this or any other hero not drawing their Ongoing destruction, except there are a lot more Mode cards in Bunker's deck, than Ongoing destruction in any other heroes deck.

However, the key idea behind promor character is not to increase their power, but to change they way they play. Whether you like B:EoW or not, I tihnk it does this quite well.

This is the most important thing anyone should take away

However, the key idea behind promor character is not to increase their power, but to change they way they play. Whether you like B:EoW or not, I tihnk it does this quite well.

We're not looking for him to be more powerful. Or even just as powerful in the same way. But his power is just... boring. It's an "in case of emergency" reactive power. Which we're thinking is relatively unique in the game.

We also typically play random-selection. But even when we've used him against, say, Iron Legacy, the results have been minimal. The power he needs to get through his deck faster to get the Modes (Initialize) is the power he loses. That leaves him with his battery, basically, since Ammo Drop isn't going to do much against IL. Or Recharge Mode, which takes a turn to get really rolling.

Anyhoo, on to the next game. Sometime...

That's true, but is also gives him an ability that his deck didn't have. if you were making a team, and wanted to include Ongoing destruction, you wouldn't need a new character.

This, as you saw, could actually be a problem with B:EoW. There are several villains that don't have Ongoings, and his ability won't have any effect.

Actually, Initialize doesn't give Bunker an extra card, it gives Bunker an extra play. He can still draw 2 cards a turn. Whether or not it is worth playing a card and drawing one or drawing 2 is something you need to decide.

Also, if you are specifically bringing a hero to destroy Ongoings (like against IL), B:EoW actaully has one of the highest chances of getting the right cards sooner, since there are 9 in his deck.

Anyhoo, on to the next game.