This is totally awesome. Another reason why I feel like the theme really shines in this game is the unpredictability of things sometimes. In the first game, we see how the heroes can still get completely wiped out even with their best efforts and in the second game they can turn the table early and really stick it to the bad guy. Love it.
[/quote]
Man, that first fight was agonizing. We selected everything at random, so before we started we knew we’d be in trouble as we didn’t really have any heavy damage output. So Plan A was to tuck as many victims as possible and hope that Spite didn’t flip a Break-in. Then his first three plays – over two rounds thanks to his extra card – were all drugs: the toxic/mill one, the +1 damage/bounce stuff one, and Mindphyre. He was clearly pissed off about something and he took it out on us instead of innocent victims.
Incidentally, it’s pretty much never worth it to actually save the victims.
The best strategy I’ve found is to let them fend for themselves until Spite has 5 drug cards and then save all of them. Or, if he hasn’t used his Forced Entry’s yet, then save as many as possible without playing cards from the villain deck, or you risk undoing all your progress.
My favorite characters to play are Tachyon and Ra. In one case I like dealing out a whole crap-load of cards with Tachyon while Ra always seems to have a decent hand. He never disappointed me.
I tend not to like Mr. Fixit or ABsolute Zero. For the former, I just haven’t played him enough, while for AZ, I still don’t know how to play him (though there is a guide in the works).
I’ve yet to try Matriarch, and Rook city. (I don’t know why I haven’t gotten to them yet!)
I find Rook City the hardest of the environments, except Mars for equipment heavy characters. Rook City plays a ton of extra villain cards, at the worst possible time.
My favorites to play are definitely Ra and Tachyon…
Ra- He ALWAYS manages to do steady damage. There are always god choices in your hand with Ra, and epic things always happen! (Big booms!) If ever there was a super consistent character against almost any villain, it is Ra. He WILL help you win with no drama or fuss. Granted, I love his super-awesome set-up, which looks to be much easier to get with alt. Ra!
Tachyon- I never get bored with Tachyon. I love the fast pace and the great powers. Getting rid of the environment and ongoing cards and doing MAJOR damage are both very helpful!
On story challenges, I have different favorites:
Visionary- I don’t like to play as Visionary, but her control can be VERY useful when trying for specific goals.
Haka- Savage Mana is a good plan sometimes.
My least favorites, due to play style and a big build up with not enough payoff, are Bunker and Expatriette. They really both annoy me…
Thus far I’ve become a bit of a Tachyon fanboy, although I try to mix it up as often as possible.
I’ve had the least positive experiences with Bunker, but I think that’s because I never draw anything heavy-hitting. I’ve never drawn Omni-cannon when playing Bunker.
I have that kind of issue with Haka - I have never been able to actually use Savage Mana in a game. I’ve seen others do wonderful things with it, but I’ve never done it myself. Very disappointing, but I’ve still had some fun games with Haka.
I have found that Expat actually has a pretty good payoff if you wait long enough. In our most recent game against Dawn, she did about half of Dawn’s health in one turn.
well, vs dawn is a bit skewed in Expatriette’s favor…
I dunno, I feel she’s weak. Slightly weak, not terribly weak, just a little weak. Her weapons are quite good, Tactical Shotgun, Assault Rifle, Pride&Prejudice are all very great powers to have, and pretty much covers all situations. My problem is what to do after that.
I mean, seeing as how you can only use one power/turn (except for Unload, which I’ll get to in a second) playing extra guns that you’re not using is not especially fantastic. So if you’re not playing a gun, what are you playing? Well, usually its ammo, if you have it. But it gets used up so quickly and usually the ammo effects are only mediocre. I mean, take Hollow Points. If you put this on Pride or the Tactical Shotgun, its essentially a one-shot to deal 2 damage. Slightly different where buffs and debuffs are concerned, but similar at least. In other words, its pretty lackluster unless you can put the ammo on the SMG or the Assault Rifle. She has a ton of card draw problems, and Arsenal Access doesn’t help enough. It’s very difficult to get what you want… especially if what you want is Speed Loading or RPG Launcher.
There are basically 2 things expatriette can do after she’s got guns out. She can either play as much ammo as possible and blaze away, or she can play as many guns as possible and prep for a devestating Unload. The first way is only good if you have Speed Loading IMO, and the second way is very vulnerable to equipment destruction. Besides that, I’m not convinced that Unload is that great. Yes it can do a ton of damage in one turn, however in order to get there you must fill up a bunch of your previous turns with mediocre card plays.
In general, I agree with you. Expatriette is not necessarily the most effective character, plagued with card issues and too many powers that probably won’t do anything. However, that doesn’t stop me from getting this really stupid grin on my face when it’s time to play Unload.
Load is nice for prepping up, too, if the villain gives you time. (Like against Spite.)
Expatirette, Fixer, and AZ really, really need some way to “cycle” redundant limited equipment (MTG-speak for “discard to draw a new card”, for those not familiar). Oddly I don’t seem to have this problem with Bunker, but that might be a side effect of his additional card draw (and being able to stuff extras in the Omnicannon).
Ooh…a promo Expatriette with the power: Discard a Gun. If you do reveal cards until you get an ammo card. Put it in your hand.
Something like that would be great for her.
On a related note, I had a game this past weekend where we had both Expatriette and Tempest in play. Both of them had their “hair-trigger reflexes” type card (where any non-hero target entering the battlefield took immediate damage) and I have to say combining the two is really quite terrific.
Er, which card does Tempest have that does damage whenever a target enters play? I mean, there’s Electrical Storm, which does each non-hero target 1 lightning damage at the start of each of Tempest’s turns, but that’s not exactly the same. Is that what you meant? confused
