When Agent of Gloom Spite flips to his Broken Vessel side does he take 5 damage for each victim in the Safehouse? I think he does not since Safehouse says he has to flip to his Drug Wracked Monstrosity side to deal himself damage. What do you think?
That would certainly be my interpretation. I've played against Agent of Gloom Spite in a couple of games and we didn't damage him when he flipped.
I agree - he deals himself damage via the Safehouse when flipping to his Drug-Wracked Monstrosity side, which doesn't exist in the killer-zombie version of Spite so the damage wouldn't apply.
So then, what's the point in saving victims in a 4 or 5 hero game? The damage he does on his Broken Vessel side is huge. You can get extra plays if you can survive it, but why not just fight him on his Agent of Gloom side?
well, the difference is that getting extra card plays is the difference between having your shots ping uselessly off his armor and damage getting through, or being able to set up and play something defensive while at the same time being able to also put out something to sacrifce to the drug.
In addition, there are a host of options for dealing woith large-scale damage. It brings cards like shielding winds and superhuman durability to the forefront, as well as support cards like twist the ether and redirection cards like tachyon's synaptic interruption.
Gaining +1 card play is huge for heroes that are heavily dependant on their gear/ongoings. You can play AZ without having to have EVERY one of his turns being playing a module (especially since it goes back to hand, and not hte trash wher eit could be pulled into play by a modular re-alignment)
the damage is nasty, but you've got a much better shot at counteracting the drugs with extra plays. If you don't have heroes who can counteract/mitigate damage, then AoG is probably better- though it will be a longer fight. If you have ways of handling the damage, and a plan for doing so, then the broken vessel side can be really good times. I'm not saying that flipping him is a good idea every time, but there is definitely a good reason to do it.
you can easily make it so that he constantly has exactly 1 guy in the safe house; have every victim in play, then save the Bystander. That will leave him there for the next hero to save, and if Thiago is out you'll replenish your hand at the start of Spite's turn anyway.
If you can manage it, I think the best plan is to play a universal damage-null card (like Hypersonic, Ground Pound, or Grease Gun) on the turn that you're flipping Spite, then it's probably ok to go ahead and deal with the bit of extra damage he is dealing in exhcange for more card plays. Haven't fought him all that much though.
What gets me about the promo Spite is it seems impossible to flip drug cards back over unless you have something letting him play extra cards, which you hope are victims.
Turn 1: One drug flipped up, one card played, at most 1 victim under safehouse. 1!>1 so you don't flip drug back over.
Same follows for other turns.
This means that, unlike normal Spite, he WILL have all 5 drugs out by turn 5, and there's nothing you can do about it unless you pick heroes specifically to do so (Omni-X playing cards off his deck, for example). Especially since once all drugs are flipped up, the only way to flip any down is to have more than 5 victims, which flips his character card.
Am I missing something, or is the text to flip drugs back down basically superfluous?
You're missing a couple of things. Firstly, the safehouse plays a victim card during setup. Which means that Spite could potentially play a second Victim during his turn, bringing the total up to 2 for the first hero turn. Also, Good Samaratin when saved plays the top card of the villain deck, so again, you could play more victim cards. On normal mode I think this is completely do-able.
On Advanced mode it's practically impossible to turn down his drugs as he will have 2 drugs face-up by the end of his first turn, and he'll have his full rig out by turn 3. On advanced it does seem pretty much superfluos.
Yeah, but that wouldn't flip the drug face down. He flips the second drug face up on the start of the turn, but he flips them face down at the end of his turn; even if you save a second one, you still won't have enough to flip a drug face-down.
If the first card spite plays is a victim, one of the first two victms is a Good Samaritan and the card played from saving the Good Samritan is a Good Samaritan then you could have 3 victims in the Safe House by the end of the round 1 environment turn which is enough to outrun his drugs and get them to start flipping back down. It's not likely without deck manipltion but it is possible. It won't save you on advance though.
Theoretically, if you DID get ahead on safehouses vs. drugs, you would stay there as long as he didn't do Forced Entry (and you weren't on Advanced). That might be why they made it so fantastically difficult, because it basically neuters him if you can manage to pull it off. Spite with neither drugs nor lifetapping ability is not especially scary.
Though possible, my group experiences a flipped "On the Prowl" or "Forced Entry" more often than we would ever prefer. We practically never save The Samaritan. He's just been too much risk for too little reward for my group.
I still want to see:
SOET: Good Samaritan -> On the Prowl -> Good Samaritan -> On the Prowl -> Good Samaritan -> Spite ragequits. "Stop helping me! I confess, take me to jail, just quit giving me soup already!"
That would be hilarious!
And then, the United States Justice System, Ironic Punishments Department, declared that his prison diet would consist exclusively of soup.
Is it just me, or is his broken vessel side a complete kitten after the first round of damage? If each player pulls a victim out of the safe house his bonus damage goes to nothing. My group has only played him once, but we got him flipped fast before he had many drugs face up (admittedly with a lucky draw), and then each of us removed a victim card at the start of our turn leaving 0 beneath by his second turn. Most of his damage isn't too high if there is nothing under the safe house so any type of damage reduction or stun bolt effect makes him do very little damage. Then its just a matter of putting in the time to kill him.
I really thought the game was going to revolve around some careful balance of the number of victims saved or constantly needing to switch between saving them and pulling them out, but mostly just save the fisrt H that you can to flip, live through one tough turn, and then pull them all out.
Just to check we did this right the one time (so far) we've fought him - after he's flipped, incapped heroes can still choose to remove victims from the Safehouse (as they still get a Start phase), but just don't get to subsequently play a card (as they don't have any), right?
It can be easy, but collateral damage can make his turns nightmarish. 3 player games are probably the easiest ones against him, but when H is 4 or 5, one bad turn could wipe out the party. Even harder because it its less likely that you'll be able to flip him before he gets all the drugs. It becomes a much more careful balancing act to try and keep him from killing victims. Having damage reduction helps a lot, but it can all go wrong very quickly!
Oh, I know we had a lucky game with him and it would be more difficult if more drugs got flipped, but…
I would think that giving him +1 damage for a turn is way worse than everyone just taking 1damage (well possibly 2 with the right drug, but possibly 0 for some of the heroes). Why would you save any victims at all once he's flipped? As much as it flies in the face of theme it feels like the best strategy after flipping him is to put those victims in danger fast and just let him kill them.
Why save the victims?
because he does damage to everyone if he kills them. And if he has his +1 damage drug out, he will deal 4 damage (in a 4 person game) at the end of the turn.
Many environments have +1 damage effects, and spite gets extra damage if you still have people in the safe house. So it is very easy, particularly as the number of players climbs, for him to do enough damage to trigger "Collateral Damage". If he has enough of a damage boost, it is quite easy for him to do 4 damage, trigger collateral damage, do 4 damage, trigger collateral damage, etc, etc, etc until all victims have been cleared.
I generally find large single hits easier to deal with than multiple AOE hits. I'll admit that this is a personal/play style preference!
a lot is going to depend on the environment, modifiers, and team dynamics. If you've got ways to tank and reduce his damage, then keeping hostages out is less of a danger. If you have people who are setup intensive, and Spite is undoing everything, then it makes more sense to keep stashing people to get more precious cards. If you have no ways of killing ongoings, and Collateral Damage comes out, then you might not want to tempt fate!
I'm not saying that there isn't a good reason to just keep all the victims in play, but generally I prefer not to so that I (and the people in my group) can get ahead of his drug card-back-to-hand curve, and punch through his armor!
If you can manage to flip him he is managable. But once he gets his full drug setup out its pretty hard to win.
I didn't have much trouble....