Advice for beating Grand Warlord Voss?

Games SotM: The Video Game
1

I'm new here, so apologies if this is the wrong forum to ask this question in. I just got the game, and I decided to try and beat each villain in the order they are presented (after trying out all the heroes and getting a basic idea of what they do). Baron Blade was very easy, and I managed Citizen Dawn with a team of Legacy, Ra, Tempest, and Expatriatte, but Voss is posing a major obstacle to me. He always seems to do more damage then I can reasonably deal with (especially that friggen flagship...), and his damage mitigation is a headache. Anyone have any good advice on how to beat this Mongol/Thanos wannabe?

For the record, I have all of the season 1 heroes, but not season 2.

2

Normally my first round or two is spent taking out minions and getting setup.   Early on I’m hoping not to see a ship as those turn things in his favor quickly if he gets one early.   Once he is flipped my first hero typically takes out the minion that got played and then the rest hit Voss.   If Forced Deployment comes up I try to destroy it that round and take as many minions out before they get to act.   Some matchups that work well are GI Bunker who can negate DR on any target, Haka can still store the minions under Savage Mana which negates Forced Deployment as an issue, and Fanatic can do a quick reset with End of Days if things get hairy.   Recurring damage like Cold Snap and Electrical Storm are great for helping to get rid of minions.  Visonary can clear out the trash with Brain Burn and help stack the deck so you don’t see the Ships.

3

Flip him over. Damage from Voss alone is likely less than damage from a pile of minions. Especially if you can hit him with a stun bolt or something like that.

I take out Voss' army in approximately this priority:

1. Guards and Tamar

2. Ships

3. Any minion that hits everybody

4. Any minion that hits lowest-HP targets

5. The rest at your discretion

If you ever see Forced Deployment, try to destroy it yourself early in the round rather than letting it destroy itself at the start of the Villain turn. Then, you can spend the rest of your heroes' actions whittling away at the minion army, so that you take less damage overall.

Take full advantage of the fact that Voss does almost nothing to destroy hero equipment and ongoing cards. Set yourself up the best way you can.

4

Welcome to Sentinels :)


Voss is known as one of the few bosses that (almost) doesn't have any kind of Equipment or Ongoing destruction. It is relatively safe to bring characters that do well with lots of setup (AZ, Argent Adept, Bunker, Wraith). The only real issues are the Ships and Forced Deployment, and both of those can be countered with the right cards. Tempest works well in this regard with Into the Stratosphere, Wraith with Infra-Red Eyepiece, and Fanatic with End of Days. I also like Tachyon for A. Being able to get rid of Forced Deployment then B. AoE abilities to kill all the minions that come out, which feeds into C. Lightspeed Barraging for half of Voss' health.

A good team I like is the straight Freedom Five, AZ, Bunker, Legacy, Wraith, and Tachyon, usually with Tachyon first to deal with Environment or Forced Deployment. Legacy gets the damage boost to stop the DR, AZ, Bunker, and Wraith all have time to get set up, and Tachyon kills waves of minions and uses Hypersonic Assault to keep damage to a minimum.

Otherwise, once you clear out the first batch of minions, you're dealing with his passive damage per round and maybe a minion. Kill the minion, and everyone focus on Voss. He has a good chunk of hit points, so it will take some time to bring him down, but you should be able to outpace his damage.

~Komori

5

Not entirely sure I have anything new to say, but ... Voss is swingy, so is vulnerable to deck manipulation: Wraith's Infrared Eyepiece, and Visionary's abilty to reorder the top cards or pull cards out of the trash and stack the villain deck.

I like to put Tempest in the middle or towards the end. Someone in front of Tempest can take out a guard or destroy Forced Deployment, then tempest can use AoE to take out a bunch of minions. Works best when you have Legacy boosting Tempest. 

Using just core heroes and no variants and using only four heroes, I'd have Legacy, Wraith, Visionary, and Tempest. Let Visionary get out her ongoing destruction early and have Wraith try to get to Infrared eyepiece as soon as possible.

6

Everyone, thanks for your advice! I can sum this up as: use the enemy deck manipulation cards you've been totally ignoring in favor of damage, you dummy. I'll give these tips a shot and see how it goes.

7

Wait, you've been ignoring deck manipulation? They're some of the most powerful effects in the game!

I'm surprised you even enjoyed the game up until now if you were just playing it as a straight damage race.

8

Voss, like Dawn, becomes a lot easier with deck manipulation such as Infrared Eyepiece. Most of his cards are either extremely weak (minions) or extremely dangerous (Forced Deployment, Spaceships). Unlike Dawn he doesn't punish you much for wiping out all his stuff- killing all the minions with AOE damage or End of Days on turn 1 is a solid strategy.

Typically you want to keep all the minions off the board. Flipped Voss's damage is more of a nusiance than an actual threat, compared to the damage that some of his minions can put out and his damage reduction. The exception would be if you can reliably deal irreducable damage (G.I. Bunker for example), in which case focussing Voss to end the game quickly.

If Forced Deployment shows up, it's important to deal with it on your terms. If you leave it in play and let Voss destroy it, every minion will get an attack and all those 2s and 3s add up. Instead, destroy it yourself as soon as possible and deal with the minions (especially the ones that hit everybody). End of Days is especially effective here- it can destroy Forced Deployment, trigger all the minions, then destroy them. Destroying them on Voss's turn before they act can also be very satisfying (Hairtrigger reflexes and +2 damage).

Also, I don't know if this makes you feel better or worse, but Voss far from being the toughest minion-based villain...

9

I’ve learned this, yeah. Now that I’m playing more intelligently, the game is even better than it already was!

Also, I managed to beat Voss! He was actually real easy once I started using Infared Eyepiece to prevent the Flagship from ruining my day. He was actually way easier than Dawn - he doesn’t have anything NEARLY as awful as Dawn’s “lol destroy everything” Aurora. Thank you everyone for your help. Now to try and figure out Omnitron…

10

I don't think deck manipulation is a critical ingredient for defeating the villains - you just have to be able to absorb an unlucky "that card" situation. (Not only the Aurora, but things like Sedative Flechettes and Devious Disruption.) One of the things that makes Voss an easier villain is that his versions of "that card" can be countered without deck manipulation.

Just be on the lookout for what the Villain is doing that hurts you most, and counter that. That strategy is why I attack minions like the Frosthound or Psi-Weaver before many others (they put out a lot of damage on everybody, regardless of health) followed by minions like the Energy Lancer (burning low-HP heroes drives them toward incapacitation faster, which hurts the whole team). Deck manipulation makes this easier, because it lets you look ahead and influence the next turn, but it's not essential.

Oh, another thing that can make fighting Voss substantially easier: bring Absolute Zero! The Thorathian army throws around enough fire and cold damage that you can often keep him at high health and bounce fire damage around to cut villain attacks short. Look for opportunities to hit Absolute Zero with fire damage from a ship and retaliate to destroy the ship before any other heroes take damage.

11

Welcome to the forums and the Sentinels community Koolerkid! Good luck with the rest of your battles! Omnitron probably won't be as tough as Voss and Ambulance's pretty easy. But when you get up to Chairman you'll be up against one of the toughest villains in the game. 

12

Well, I already beat Ambuscade during my trial runs to get an idea of the characters; it was pretty pitiful, honestly. For a guy clearly made to resemble badasses like Deathstroke, Taskmaster, and Sportsmaster, he puts up a pretty weak fight. I was disappointed.

Also, I beat Omnitron! Woo! But if Chairman’s that hard… anyone got any tips for him, too? At least give me an idea what I’m walking into?

Also, thanks for the warm welcome!

13

No problem. The Chairman is two villains in one since he fights alongside The Operative and you need to take out both to win.

The card to watch out for in Chairman's deck is called Jail Break. Played early it's not bad but if played once you've defeated his Underbosses it will bring them all back and then they'll all bring out Thugs. Also, everytime you hit Chairman he'll counterattack and every time you take out a thug or underboss The Operative will attack.

 

Deck control heroes like Visionary and Wraith can help control when Jail break comes out. Visionary's Brain Burn is particularly useful against Chairman since it interferes with him bringing out Thugs.

Defensive heroes like Scholar, Legacy, and Omnitron-X can absorb the melee attacks Chairman and Operative like to make.

Haka's Savage Mana is a great place to store villain targets so they can't come back... just make sure you let at least 3 Underbosses hit the trash so Chairman will flip.

 

14

Chairman is pretty rough.

If you want to go easy mode, just bring Legacy. With both copies of Next Evolution, Legacy Ring, and Lead from the Front, your entire team can become immune to every instance of damage their entire deck can throw out. They only deal Melee and Projectile damage, so with Legacy immune to both and redirecting all of it to himself, everyone else is free to demolish on them with impunity.

For bonus cheese, bring Visionary. A first-turn Brain Burn will put all of his Thugs back under his deck, neutering his Underbosses. She’ll take some damage, but it’s worth it; especially if you use Heroic Interception first to protect her.

Slightly less cheesy methods involve stalling out his deck, timing things so you fill up his trash (and flip him) JUST before he runs out of cards, so on his next turn he A.) Flips, B.) Shuffles his trash into his deck to play a card, C.) Summons an Underboss, and D.) Fails to summon a Thug since his trash is now empty.

It’s good to bring heroes with damage reduction, like Wraith, Unity (Stealth Bot), Naturalist, and Omnitron-X, as well as heavy hitters like Chrono-Ranger, K.N.Y.F.E., and Ra.

Another great strategy is to bring Haka to stuff all of his Thugs (and all but 1-3 of the Underbosses, depending on whether or not you are playing on Advanced mode) in his pants with Savage Mana. Or, even better, play on the Final Wasteland and let the environment remove them from the game entirely! (Just make sure you don’t accidentally remove too many Underbosses and make it so he can’t ever flip. Or do try that once; the video game has a unique game over screen for it!)

Another strategy (not limited to this villain) is to bring Mr. Fixer and Absolute Zero. With Crowbars and Grease Monkey Fist, Fixer can hit one target (preferably Operative) for like 4, and then hit AZ for~7 fire damage. Then AZ can do 7 Cold damage to something, or heal it back. Then, on his turn, use a one-shot for some more damage, and finish it up with Coolant Blast for a massive attack.

Hope that helps! Also I hope I didn’t get ninja’d too hard; I can’t post very reliably, since I’m at work.

15

lol “demolish on them.” I started to say wail on them, but I changed it to demolished and forgot to remove the “on.”

Unfortunately, editing the comment destroys the formatting, and it’s kinda funny, so instead I’ll just settle for pointing it out and call it a day.

16

Jeez, you guys weren't kidding about the Chairman. My first attempt died horribly because of a Jail Break at the worst possible time. My second attempt got a Brain Burn real early, and it was STILL an extremely painful slog thanks to the Operative. But I did it! Woo! Next up the Matriarch; wish me luck friends!

17

Omnitron-X is your friend. Also Tachyon; Hypersonic Assault is very helpful.

18

My advice on the Matriarch is, unless you have something stopping all damage, just leave the birds in play. c.c;

19

Bring someone that can deal with damage reduction.  Matriarch's cohorts are nasty when paired together and they can bring each other back.  With someone like GI Bunker though it becomes a lot easier to take them out.

20

Lacking the damage reduction piercing, I tend to let one stay out at 1-2 hp, then once the other appears nuke the one and take out the other that same round. Results vary…

Yes, AoE is king (or in this case, queen) against Matriarch due to the sheer number of minions that come out. Granted, they die to any damage, but that triggers retaliation damage from Matriarch. I find Equipment heavy heroes with any kind of damage reduction (Bunker, Benchmark) do alright due to her relative lack of Equipment destruction. Also, Legacy with Next Evolution/Lead from the Front set to Psychic can just eat all the retaliation damage. Visionary with Twist the Ether on her(Matriarch) can make her damage output much more manageable as well.

~Komori