Pretty much what it says on the tin:
How do The Sentinels fit into the Play/Power/Draw paradigm, given that they all 4 have unique powers. And, for that matter, how do their cards interact with the 4 Sentinels targets?
Similarly, how does the Vengeance villain deck differ from the already-existing villain decks? Are there still one-shots and ongoings in the Vengeance deck, rather than just targets?
Each Sentinel counts as a hero character card but they collectively only count as 1h. They still follow the normal rules in terms of play power and draw. The character cards all count as cards in play. Anything that targets the player hits all of them. Anything that targets a hero or hero target hits one of them. Cards like infection have their own rules detailed in the rule book.
Yes, there are ongoings and oneshots in the decks. The primary difference is in how they set up which is one villian then one hero and so on and so forth until the enviornment.
Does that help?
So, you can only use one Sentinels power per turn? Or are there cards that let them all act?
I’m guessing the Vengeance one-shots and the like play off of which villains are in play at the time? Or does that not matter?
Each Vengeance deck has their own one shots and ongoings that mostly just affect themselves (Baron Blade and Friction have cards that autoplay other villan decks but it doesn't matter much which decks are around). They don't depend on specific decks being in play.
The Sentinels have a card that lets them use a power when they deal damage, so you can get two powers out of them a round. The Sentiels are one hero and 4 hero targets. If the Sentiels can't use powers, none of them can. However, if a target damages the hero, raher than hero target, I say it only hits one of them. However, this was never confirmed during the plytesting so may be resolved differently.
They are all considered targets right? So they would be pretty bad vs. Iron Legacy, as they would all die pretty fast to his anything with a lot of all hero target damage.
Is this the case, or would you choose one to take the damage?
Do they have status effects in their deck that only effect one of them? Like an ongoing that says "reduce all damage dealt to Mainstay by 2" or anything like that?
I also assume their HP counts individually for highest and lowest calculations, so they would pretty much be taking lowest HP hits from the start, and avoid highest for quite a while.
Or maybe you pool their hp for calculations of highest and lowest and all hero targets damage would only hit one of them? That seems more balanced and is the way I hope it works. (alhough I could be missing something that would destroy the balance of the game)
When you say cards that effect the player effect all of them, this would be things like "may not use powers or draw/play cards" instructions, I can't think of any that deal a player damage, so I'm assuming that isn't a problem.
If they got hit by an effect that said:
"Deal the lowest HP target a decent chunk of damage, a target taking damage this way cannot deal damage until the cows come home."
Would only the one that actually lost hp be prevented from dealing damage, or would the whole lot be stopped?
Lastly do their cards have "The Sentinels" act, or do they give a name of one of them, "The Sentinels look cool till the start of your next turn," or "Mainstay looks cool till the start of your next turn" or maybe a mixture depending on the card?
Iron Legacy can actually get a perfect set-up that can incap all The Sentinels on the very first turn! But it's not all bad, at least they have Ongoing destruction on their incap!
They each have a signature card that only applies when that particular member is still active.
Idealist tend to be targeted for the lowest target quite often, but they have great healing.
If the Ensnaring Brambles made it where the lowest hero target could not deal damage, and if Idealist is the lowest, then she would not be able to deal damage. The other three would however continue to be able to deal damage.
Most cards list the individuals. A lot of One-shots even have two members do two different things. There is Sentinels Tactics, which will trigger if any member of the Sentinels deals damage.
I was mostly thinking of Infection or Embolden.
They are each a separate target, so would each go into the calculations separately.
In the rule book it says specifically for infection, that only one gets infected, but once one of the 4 is infected the entire bunch is considered infected for purposes of playing other infection cards (in other words only one of them ever can be infected) and for purpouses of flipping Plague rat
So with the sentinels in a 3 hero game against plague rat, you will still get only 3 infections on the table, adn 3 on thet able will flip him
Embolden should just give the player an additional power so it will work, i believe.
You misunderstand. When Fanatic deals the Sentinels damage from Embolden, who gets damaged? All of the Sentinels or just one of them? I think one but that wasn’t how I read Tesla’s explanation.
player choice.
This. Sorry, if I wasn’t clear about that. When you are actually playing them they are a lot simpler and more intuitive.
I would think that would make it fairly easy for them to be incapped on the first turn by some of the nastier villains. Say it's a 5-hero game and Voss opens on 2x Cryo-Hound, 2x Psi-Weaver, Bio-Naut, and puts Vyktor into play on his first turn. That's 12 damage to all heroes and 3 more to the lowest, and I heard once that Idealist has just 11 HP. Do the Sents have some way of surviving such an onslaught (automatically redirecting damage among themselves or something), or do they just all die before getting a turn?
As long as one Sentinel stands, they can recover, but given that setup, it would take them quite awhile.
So, if Idealist is incapped but Medico isn't, he can un-incap her?
On a related subject, does each Sentinel have an incap ability, and do they use it even if other Sentinels are still active? If not, wouldn't the Sentinels be at their weakest when 3 of them are down and able to do nothing whatsoever?
No, they don't have individual incaps. The setup card has their incaps, and it isn't flipped over until all 4 are incapped. They do, however, have a choice of 4 incap abilities instead of the usual 3.
They have a one-shot that allows Medico to un-incap any other Sentinel, and they have another that lets you un-incap any one Sentinel (in case Medico gets incapped). I forget how many copies of each, but it's something like x3 and x2 respectively.
How many HP do they all have?
Idealist 11, Medico 13, Writhe and Mainstay at 14.
Okay, so Medico would go down in my scenario, but if it were a bit less henious he'd survive.
If none of the Sentienls fall, is the Medico-Raises-One card a dud, or does it do something else a la Inspired Repair?
They also have some damage redirection and reduction in the deck, and alot of the combo cards have medico healing someone. Plus two cards that can bring one of them back from incap (for a total of 6 in the deck, 3 each)
They don't go down nearly as fast as one thinks.
The issue of The Sentinels surviving the game was a HUGE deal in playtesting. Over the various playtest builds I noticed a significant increase in their ability to remain standing.
I think they’ll be considered quite an impressive team.
This. They're very powerful, but very vulnerable to AE. I tend to think of them as a more resilient, less "broken if left alone" version of Unity's bots. My favorite part about them is that they require very little build up. They have a few Ongoings and 1 Equipment, but otherwise, they're about as powerful on turn 1 as on turn 20 (and trust me, they're pretty powerful on turn 1).
There are actually 2 un-incap cards; one ONLY does that, so it's a dud if none of them are dead. The other also heals all hero targets, but because resurrecting someone is so powerful it might as well be a dud. Also, Mainstay is a tanking BEAST. Not quite like the Scholar, but he can maintain a permanent DR2 (DR1 on ALL HERO TARGETS) plus additional if he gets extra powers (Argent Adept, Greatest Legacy, etc.) and an optionally triggered Alchemical Redirection that you can maintain for multiple turns. They are SURPRISINGLY survivable. Not to mention the fact that Medico is the best healer in the game.
That's all YOUR hero targets. Thus all hero targets of the player playing The Sentinels, thus on all Sentinels.
Sentinels are nasty.
Yes they have low health and things can get dicey. But thats their downside. They have an upside equally as impressive. Consider most heros Power curve over time, they all need a little setup time to get going. A few rounds to get engines rolling. Sentinels are at the top of their power curve from their first turn. Their one shots are awesome, among the best in the game. They have the ability to dig in their deck quickly, play multiple cards/powers, tons of damage...these guys got serious power to balance out.
Not to mention the best, reusable single target healing in the game. Dr. Medico <3 Scholar with Mortal Form to Energy
Edit: Forgot about Naturalist, make that single target TARGETABLE healing.
Gazelle form is just nuts
Playing a game with Sentinels, Scholar and the Naturalist, with all of the tanking/healing potenial amongst those 3, will flat out shit down some villains w/out ongoing destruction
That combo doesn't have much ongoing destruction of their own (just a bit from Gazelle), but yeah, against some bosses....easy mode.
And that's why you never let someone else scan the cards for post-playtesting changes. I was told the "your" got taken out, but I never bothered checking myself because I figured he could read.
Rules question time
Restorative Burst
If Dr Medico is active, you may flip one of your incapacitated heroes and restory it to 3hp. Each hero regains 1 hp.
Second Chance
Flip one of your character cards from its incapacitated side to its active side. Restore it to 6 hp.
The different wording (of Character cards vrs heroes) throws me a little - Does anyone think that it can be used on non Sentinel cards? I don't think so because it says 'Your' and there is no card draw or anything to help get an incapped hero back into the game.
But the wording difference makes me sigh a little, my desire for well templated wording.
There is a team wide heal on Burst that hits all heros. Think Fanatic. The wording seems clear to me as to what is supposed to happen.
The Sentinels card can only ever "revive" members of The Sentinels. Not other heroes.
Thanks, Christopher. I figured that was the case but always nice to have known for certain :)
It would take a lot more than just card drawing to get an incapped hero back into the action. As their entire deck is removed from the game upon incap. Leaving you with a nearly dead hero, that will be doing the same thing every turn.
As I always like to say in life, 'Reading is FUNdemental!'
Unity, Sentinels, Visionary plus two other heroes versus Vengeance Five in Final Wasteland. ALL THE TARGETS IN PLAY FOREVER.
Well, if you go with Realm of Discord instead, you could get that card that changes all hero ongoings/equipment into targets as well. Then have Nightmist cast Obvliion and watch everyone cry 
A question about how the Mini-Nemisis fit into the vengeance villian decks for someone who has the game or playtested:
Do the Mini nemisis cards generally do things that are in line with the particular villian deck they fit within or would you say they have more random effects that are in line with the character on the card? For instance, are the mini-nemisis cards in Friction's deck very focused on playing multiple cards quickly like I imagine her own cards are, or do they do things totally unrelated to her theme? Are Fright Train's mini nemisis cards preoccupied with big damage?
Thanks in advance!
The mini-nemmys have effects and added effects that are more in-line thematically with who their acctual hero nemmy is.
For instance, Calypso, a water spirit like woman who is a nemmy of Ra, she will reduce fire damage if Ra is in play
Not really, no. That said, 2 of the Nemeses in Ermine's deck destroy ongoings or environment cards, and he deck is mostly about that kind of manipulation. All the nemeses DO interact with their Nemeses however. I haven't tried to do any "math" to see if there's some correlation there, like the nemeses in Ermine's deck are all likely to oppose Wraith or something similar. I do know that both Fixer's and Expatriette's nemeses are in Baron Blade's deck, but the other 2 Dark Watch members are NOT. I feel confident that there is SOME logic to whose decks they're in, but I haven't grokked it yet.
So using your categories of "effects" and "added effects," you'd say added effects are mini nemisis thematic based on a particular hero being in play. The simple effects that always happen, however, work to the ends of the larger V5 deck?
I doubt it works out that cleanly, but I'm curious if you see this trend.
PS: Thanks Broccoli, that helps my understanding a lot. :D
Its a tough call to make. Revanent runs RevoCorp, so I doubt he is a subordinate of Frictions or something. If there is a connection between which nemmy is in which V5 deck, its a very loose one.
No not really. Its mostly damage effects, with some having a smattering of equip/ongoing/enviro destruction, but they are not clumped in themes, but spread out.
Its the secondary effects when that Nemmy sees its arch rival hero that becomes strongly thematic
No, if I was using Realm of Discord, I'd want to use it to have the Scholar one-shot Iron Legacy with Grace Under Fire. Superhuman Redirection would need to be killed first, of course.