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

General GTG General Discussion
21

I like a 5 hero team with Legacy, Chrono Ranger, Omnitron X, Argent Adept, and Haka.

 

Legacy and Haka can tank while dealing admirable amounts of Melee damage.

 

Argent Adept, Omnitron X, and Chrono Ranger provide a variety of Ongoing destruction.

 

Legacy and Argent Adept can buff everyone else in various ways.

 

Omnitron X and Chrono Ranger can dish out a surprising amount of damage over the course of the game, especially if Chrono Ranger gets his "Ultimate Target" bounty in play early on.  Combined with buffs from Argent Adept, Legacy, and Ultimate Target, Chrono Ranger's Composite Bow is dealing 10 damage every turn the villain deals damage (which can destroy villains with a redirect like Blade and Iron Legacy, who will likely be dealing damage on each hero turn).  Omnitron X's components can be fragile, but he has a good number of ways to get his Platings out on the field, so as long as you know the damage type you're up against, you can minimize the risk of his components being destroyed.

 

Argent Adept and Omnitron X can allow other players to play cards out of turn, helping them to get set up quickly.  AA's ability to let players draw cards and use powers out of turn can really aid in dishing out some quick damage as well (or to let Legacy double Galvanize, making Chrono Ranger even scarier).

 

And what does Haka do?  Well, everything else.  Because he's awesome.  Ground Pound or a well timed Rampage can completely turn the tides and Savage Mana can allow for some trippy battlefield control.  He could probably be replaced with another hero, but Haka gets it done.

 

Is the team perfect?  No, there are probably other combinations that work far better.  If you want a perfect team that will give you the easiest win, having Wraith and Visionary for near perfect villain control is probably ideal.  But, I don't have nearly as much fun with them for that very reason.

22

By Any Means > The Ultimate Target, especially if H is high.  The only exception might be if the villain deals damage during hero turns, EG Spite if a hero saves a Lost Child.  And even then probably only if CR has a piece of Equipment out (other than his Hat), since getting an extra Quick-Shot is unlikely to be worth +1 damage to the villain from every other hero, plus the Environment, plus even any self-damage the villain does.  (I'll have to try CR against Gloomweaver the Rotting God sometime…"Stop hitting yourself, stop hitting yourself, stop hitting yourself!".)

Of course, that was what you were talking about, but it's something of a niche case.  BAM is better 9 times out of 10 (well, more like 16 out of 18).

Argent Adept and Omnitron X can allow other players to play cards out of turn, helping them to get set up quickly.

This is especially good if Unity is in the party.  The Scholar can also grant card plays, and sometimes appreciates receiving them…it's better not to Timeshift Scholar until he knows where his Know When To Turn Looses are, but Know When To Hold Fast out-of-turn is amazing.  And if you turn up a Proverbs and Axioms or a Don't Dismiss Anything, you're basically giving every hero an extra half-turn in the middle of your action (which may be bad for some players' patience, but is certainly good for the team's win chances).

23

Much-belatedly, here's my thoughts on the two-Hero game:

1-2 Icapcitated heroes sounds good in practice, but from the times I've done something like that (actually running three heroes + an Incap with H=4* for story reasons), it actually tends to be insanely overpowered.  Incapacitated abilities are designed to give you a fighting chance to get back into a game that's out of control, can be used every turn, and can never be taken away through stuff destruction.  Having Visionary to destroy every Environment card that was even mildly annoying was enough to convince me of the innate power here, and maybe I overreacted... but just think about what the seriously crazy Incap effects could do: Absolute Zero the Elemental Wrath can lock down the Environment deck for good, Bunker would allow a Hero to use their biggest power card every other turn, Tempest can reduce damage from Iron Legacy, Apostate, or The Chairman by more than half, and Horus Ra just needs to wait for a single Healing Light/Nanites/etc. before he can make many villains do nothing but the damage printed on their card every turn forever until the Heroes can take them down to zero in a single turn.

You can cherry pick your Sidekicks for the ones that are more or less "half of a Hero turn," (that is to say, ones with just draw a card/play a card/use a Power/something weak like 1 damage or one healing), but I think at that point, you could just grab a couple of things from that menu for a custom sidekick and avoid the headaches/easy wins.

For my own part, I like to use two-Hero games as a chance to breathe a little life and challenge into the weaker villain decks.  Face off against Ambuscade, or non-Advanced Ennead, or Baron Blade with only two heroes, and set H equal to 3.  This is a lot simpler than almost any other variant rule would be, and it can be a lot of fun to see the usual laughing stocks of the community really breathing down your neck and getting dangerous.  I've refused to try Gloomweaver again even with this handicap, but who knows, it might just make (the original form of) even that much-maligned villain come alive.

Ironic

* Okay, actually, I just have the non-Enhanced base set, so H always equals four for those villains, unless I am really going out of my way to change things up.

24

 

I agree entirely after having done about 3 games. 

The last time my daughter and I played we tried another idea and it worked very well.  We did wind up losing to Voss and he had about 6 HP left, but it felt balanced.  I'd say the only thing that felt a little off was that we had more cards in our hand than normal - but if there was a third hero then that would have been a whole other set of cards as well.  Overall, I think it was balanced and challenging.  We'll be trying it again soon.

 

Simple 2 Hero Variant Idea:

1: Each hero starts with his maximum HP raised by 15.

2: Every round that the heroes play one hero gets to use an extra power, and the other hero gets to draw an extra card. Then the next round they switch.

3: H=3

25

  1. You're right about By Any Means if you only plan on damaging the villain.  CR can use his extra power to easily nuke down a Minion/Citizen/Device/Relic and destroy it before the End Phase (which is when most of those things would have their effect happen).  The Ultimate Target has saved my hide a few times, allowing me to take down a scary minion/citizen that could have caused problems (such as Citizen Autumn) before their effect triggered.  But, I see your point about raw damage potential.

  2. Yeah, Timeshift is amazing on Legacy as well considering he has absolutely no way to search for cards on his own.  Timeshift at least let's you cycle through his deck a little faster to get out the good stuff (I can't tell you how many times both of my Legacy Rings have been buried in the bottom 1/3 of my deck).  It's the out-of-turn support that makes me love AA and OX so much; and all your friends appreciate it too.  It's like Christmas morning for them when I let them do something when it's not their turn.  It keeps them in tune to the game.

26

Scholar is good for some random getting-cards-out-of-your deck stuff with Don't Dismiss Anything. Okay so that's just one card and I think he only has two or three copies in his deck...but that's always fun ;).

27

2 copies, but the chaining with Reclaim or vernal is amazing.  Esp. Reclaim, Reclaim sets up for DDA return a second Reclaim to your hand, DDA puts reclaimed cards and a new card for Tempest into play.  

Tempest and Scholar give up their normal card plays, Tempest gets the top card of his deck in play each turn, and scholar doesn't get much good from it, since to run it each round he has to use DDA to put the other DDA on top of his deck.  

Adding Adept to the team solves that, and makes it incredibly complex and profitable:

1.  Tempest plays reclaim:  Reclaim puts one card on top, Reclaim for Tempest, vernal for Adept and DDA for Scholar reclaim goes to Tempest's hand, and he draws a card.  Everyone else puts a card they want from trash to hand (if desired).

2:  Adept plays vernal (heal!) and everyone puts the card they want DDA'd on top, Scholar puts proverbs on top, (Adept draws his)

3:  Scholar plays DDA playing whatever Tempest wanted to play, any other heroes, then Scholar puts P&A in play, Adept draws Vernal, others draw the card they put on top in step one, and then Adept gets the top card of his deck into play (or he can return a card he wants to draw this turn)

 

We got this going round three once (thanks to that Spite drug that discards 5 from your deck) and it was sick.  The other 2 heroes get a card from trash in play, another card in hand picked from trash or top of deck, and with Adept healing with vernal, and giving extra card play it got insane.  We had Expat and Unity for the 4th and 5th, and the game ended pretty fast.  I want to try it with the new Fixer.

You can work it out that Scholar can play DDA three times a round, but it gets complicated and Adept has to be albe to let Scholar draw after he plays vernal.  We tried an idea my friend had for even more, but we got lost on what we were doing (chaining DDA to DDA when Silver Shadow and Reclaim get played by the first DDA gets rough.

28

What do you want to bet one of the Vengeance heroes will be able to join in on this action?  I'm thinking it seems to suit The Sentinels, especially The Idealist, but I could also imagine it making sense for Parse.  She seems like the sort of person who would be perfectly fine with doing the same thing over and over, as long as this thing works.