Best Heroes/Villians for 2, 3, 4, and 5 Hero Games

General GTG General Discussion
1

As I'm new to this, I'm just wondering what you guys think about what heroes and villians are best to play in 2, 3, 4, and 5 hero games.

As far as the 2 player element, I'm talking about 2 heroes (not 2 players and 3 heroes), as in the 2 hero variant that is on BGG (http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/872326/my-journey-to-find-the-best-rules-for-a-2-players).

So, for clarification, if you could only play with 2 heroes, which ones would it be?  And which villian would you fight?

It seems to me that as far as villians go, 2 players agains Baron Blade or Ambuscade would be a solid matchup.  From everything I've heard you wouldn't want to take on the Chairman with less than 4.

It also seems like you wouldn't want to go into a fight with a heavy tank/controller like Legacy or Visionary if you only had 2 heroes.  I don't know, just wondering what you guys think.

2

As you probably already know, 2 hero games are not an officially supported play format. Any 2 hero varients need to be heavily houseruled to prevent the [H] mechanic, and the rest of the game, from breaking down. My answer has to be "none" for that reason, but you are welcome to experiment.

The best way for two players to play is by running 2 heros each. Or there is a popular "sidekick" varient where each player only runs 1 deck each and you bring along one incapped hero setting [H]=3 which doesn't require heavy houseruling.

Chairman gets exponentially harder as [H] drops due to the nature of his minions and the total amount of damage needed to correctly time his trash/deck reshuffle. [H]=3 is incredibly punishing even when you try and metagame the matchup.

3

Yes, that's what I'm talking about.  I love the idea of a sidekick or support deck.  Managing multiple heroes (for me) bogs the game down.  Here's the current favorite variant over at BBG (I'm looking forward to trying it this weekend):

 

Each Player uses 1 Hero.
Shuffle all Hero Character cards not used in this game, this will be the Support Deck, Incapacitated side up.
The Support Deck represents the support that helps the Heroes, it can be a supercomputer from the Base Camp or Sidekicks or team of Heroes, etc.
So the total is 2 Heroes + 1 Support = 3 Heroes, H=3.

The Hero Turns is:
- Hero A Turn,
- Hero B Turn,
- Support Turn: each Player may choose 1 ability from the 3 abilities available on the top of the Support Deck.
Hero A chooses 1 Ability, then Hero B chooses 1 Ability (Hero A and B may choose the same Ability). After that put the top card of the Support Deck to the Support Discard pile.

Note:
- the Support Deck and the Support Discard Pile are not exist in the game (no effect may be applied to them). Treat the Support Turn as an Incapacitated Hero's Turn, as in the Rulebook (according to here, an incapacitated Hero can skip his turn).
- If the Support Deck is empty, just shuffle the Support Discard pile to make the new Support Deck.
- The Support only help the Hero that is not Incapacitated. Example: Hero A is Incapacitated. On Support's Turn, only Hero B chooses 1 Ability.
 

4

For 2 player variants, the less minion-heavy villains tend to work best.  I've found that Ambuscade can be a lot more fun in a 2 player scenario (where the H is counted as 3) than for any other amount of heroes.  Plague rat is a tough fight (and frankly, one that you are not likely to win with 2 people),  but it can be a lot of fun to try.  `

For the more minion heavy villains, like Voss and Dawn, I've found that it can be a fun fight if you ignore the setups on the villains.  they don't get to start with a crew, so you get a small amount of grace before you get overwhelmed.  Sometimes you can pull it off and blast new minions before they have much of a chance to do anything, sometimes they get something (or someone) out that lets them pull ahead.  

For heroes, the less of a setup the hero needs to be effective, the better off you'll be.  Tachyon, Haka, Tempest, Ra, Chrono... all good choices.  but you can bring in anyone, really. 

5

You are not alone. Once you are fully familiar with all of the decks I bet you could pull it off without being too bogged down. But thats easy for me to say, I'v been playing since release =P

6

Try two heroes, two "sidekicks" (incapacitated hero cards), H = 3. Balanced? Eh, sort of. Playtested? Hardly. Barely. Not really. But it could be fun!

What's the worst that can happen?

(Global thermonuclear war. That's the worst that can happen.)

7

Bleak dude. Real bleak.

8

Not necessarily!  Finn and Jake have all sorts of vibrant adventures in a post-apocalyptic world!  Once you get past the "thousand years of wasteland" era, things start looking up!

9

Ehhh…Hakuna matata.

 

(As long as we are going with Mathew Broderick references.)

10

Would you like to play a game?

11

I think it's "Would you like to play a game?"

12

Dang typos…/fixed

13

For the 2 player version you want heroes that can stand on their own really well.

 

Wraith, Tempest, Chrono Ranger, Haka, Omnitron-X, Nightmist, Fixer are really good picks, otherwise you want to get a 2-player team that works really well together, like Omni-X/Unity. or Legacy/Tachyon.

For villains typically the more (H) they use the easier they are for smaller teams, and the harder they are for bigger teams.  That doesn't always end up true, but as a basic rule it works.

On the other side of the coin the more big HP minions and flat damage greater than 2 is involved the harder they are for small teams and easier for big teams.

 

You want to be careful selecting your support deck, as certain heroes incap abilities wreck certain villains and make certain heroes ridiculously powerful.

 

Unity and any incap that says "one hero may play a card now" is just really powerful, Tempest's incapcan really shut down certain villains.  Team Leader Tachyon can shuffle a trash into a deck, effectively crushing the Chairman, and flipping Akash'bhutah and The Matriarch at will.

It is important to remember when using the support deck that the game is not at all balanced for it.

 

Legacy is a hero that gets way better the more heroes there are in the game, higher (H) hits don't mattter when you are immune, and the more heroes benefitting from his damage boosts the better.

The game seems most balanced for 4 players, and pretty much everyone works just as well.

Also everyone knows that you can avert Global Thermonuclear War with a 9 block grid and your high school sweetheart.

14

Thanks for the info!

15

I play infinite heroes in infinite combinations (to do otherwise would be illogical), but if I were to pick out twelve heroes for a 'dream team", it might look something like this:

3 heroes:  Tempest (striker and problem-solver), The Scholar (tank), Nightmist (party wizard and last woman standing)

4 heroes:  Haka (frontline warrior), Chrono-Ranger (executioner), Unity (one-girl army), The Visionary (writes the script for the whole battle)

5 heroes:  Legacy (ungodly awesome war-leader for high-H games), Absolute Zero (nuclear weapon with long-burning fuse), The Wraith (extremely talented generalist), Fanatic (miracle factory), Omnitron-X (another nuclear option).

The Argent Adept is also extremely powerful, I just couldn't make up my mind which group to put him in.  Tachyon is potentially quite handy, but a bit underwhelming at times unless luck is on her side (or you use the absurd Team Leader promo version).  Bunker and Mr. Fixer are somewhat underpowered generalists.  Expatriette is perhaps the single weakest hero overall, and Ra is extremely good at dealing damage but doesn't have much of anything else up his sleeve.

I can think of much worse things.

16

What do you think of Fanatic?  My daughter player her twice in a row and both times she saved our bacon with End of Days and Wrathful Retribution!

17

Personally I've had trouble doing well with Fanatic.  Thematically she doesn't appeal to me, and her mechanics frustrate me on a lot of levels.  She definitely has a lot of cards that can be very powerful in certain situations, but in my experience you often draw them in the wrong situation and are stuck not being able to contribute.  I've never tried her Redeemer promo, who trades the nerfable Exorcism power for healing and card-drawing which might make a huge difference.  (There's also supposed to be another promo on the way somewhere in the future.)

End of Days is very situational; it can often save your bacon, but it also costs you all of your stuff, and the villain in general is built to recover faster than you often will.

Wrathful Retribution is a singleton, it costs you your whole starting hand to play, and if you try to do more than 20 damage with it, you might end up dying before you can play it (especially since there are often other things you need to play first).  Generally I only use it as a finishing move, and don't worry too much about getting the most out of it.

I always seem to get stuck holding Smite the Transgressor in my hand when I haven't got a second power to use, then drawing Absolution when I'm at my max HP, and otherwise being unable to get all the mileage out of her cards.  I love Brutal Censure because it lets you draw a card, and the most fun I've had with her was when I got to try out some unconventional strategies, like running Divine Focus for a full round and then reloading with Prayer or Desperation, or using Sacrosanct Martyr for the first time.  My favorite card in her whole deck is Final Dive, closely followed by Aegis of Resurrection; she has access to more HP than pretty much any other character, and yet I've managed to get her killed in half my games, and only once has her incap ability helped the team win.  She definitely has her charms, but overall I find her unreliable and frustrating.  My saying about her is "Fanatic's idea of strategy is to pray for a miracle", and that pretty much sums it up.  I prefer characters I can count on to work as I expect them to, ones who are always able to contribute to the situation at hand.  (And ones who aren't insane murderous Templar zealots.  The Redeemer version is after she mellows out a bit, which is another point in its favor.)

18

Fanatic is one of my favorite heroes.  I can go all day with the tactics that are my favorite and the stories of high-risk, high-reward gameplay, but I'll keep this simple.

 

Fanatic has a deck full of super powerful cards.  No one else can really match Wrathful Retribution, End of Days, Aegis, Divine Focus, Final Dive or Zealous offense.  However, the cards don't tend to work well together, so she ends up pretty balanced.

My strategy with her is a full on assault, where I give no heed to my HP and just fly into battle swinging.  Zealous offense is one of my favorite cards in the whole game, and teamed with Absolute Zero's sub-zero atmosphere can ruin any minion based villains day.

I like getting Martyr into play early, esp. since it works so well with Zealous Offense (sometimes you can't deal villains 3 damage because of heavy reduction, but damage dealt to yourself counts as damage dealt, so 3 to myself and 1 to a villain counts as 4 dealt, and keeps Zealous Offense in play)

I disagree with how Envisioner sees her, I see her as a true believer, unafraid to get hurt or die for her cause of ridding the world of evil.  She gains power by not being concerned for her own fate, she would gladly lay down her life for her friends, or her cause.

One of the ways to ensure you are doing the right things is to look at the overall HP that will change, if doing a full on Martyr (5 to self) will help bring about the destruction of a target that will deal 2 damage to each hero (6-10 damage) then it is the right choice.  Divine Sacrifice and Aegis of Resurection is another combo that won us a match.  One match two of Omni's EPE's came out in the same round.  We were able to knock one down, but the second was going to wreck us.  I had Aegis in play and 17hp, so I used divine Sacrifice on it, it dropped me to 3hp, then 0, where Aegis restored me to 10hp, and the third incapped me.  The other two heroes won the game, but wouldn't have if that EPE had been allowed to thit them.

That is Fanatic to me, the one hero that is most willing to die for the win.  She loves to go down fighting, and it is rare that a villain can survive her.

19

I actually do like her theme a lot.

20

Redeemer Fanatic, Tempest, Ra. A very powerful 3 hero team capable of handling a majority of advanced mode villains.