Okay, so, this has been rattling around my head for a while, and I can't come to a final answer, so I figured I'd ask you guys.
In Rook City, The Chairman is clearly the final boss, as we all know.
And in Shattered Timelines, I asked on the twitter if there would be any more level 4 villains, and the response said "One!" And I think we can all guess who that's going to be. Which only makes sense, since that villain is kind of a big deal.
But what about Infernal Relics? GloomWeaver and The Ennead are both level 3, but which one do you guys think classifies as the final boss of IR? GloomWeaver is on the box art, but there's only the nemeses of the two heroes on there, so I don't think that necessarily indicates he's the final boss. I just can't decide which one it is.
Who's the final boss: The Ennead or GloomWeaver?
"Final boss" being determined by difficulty between the two (not numerical difficulty).
Am I the only one that considers Apostate one of the more insane villains ever? I've been able to put the beat down on Gloomweaver and the Ennead but when I did a solo test on Apostate I was like "wow... no".
He can be pretty difficult, yeah. He's pretty much the hardest level 2 villain, so he's bordering on being a level 3. I'm still curious as to what other people think, but I think I'm leaning towards The Ennead. Even if GloomWeaver is level 3, I've never seen him be as difficult as The Ennead is consistently.
That's true. The last two times I played The Ennead, we were playing on advanced, so we had the full team against us within a couple of turns. But even on normal mode, they can still cause some severe chains and deal a lot of damage. Not only that, but giving them incapacitated powers makes it worse. Fighting them is pretty much like playing PvP.
actually, I find Gloomweaver to be one of the easiest villains, pretty much level 1-2. The Ennead can be harsh, especially on advanced, but thematically, I would actually say Apostate. He's the guy with all the relics. And maybe we've just had bad luck with the relic combinations he gets, but on average he's been harder than the Ennead for us.
Honestly, I agree too. Now that I think about it, GloomWeaver has never given us a significant challenge.
But I was considering Apostate too. He is really strong, and pretty scary theme-wise. We've always had a significant amount of trouble with him, and truthfully: he's never flipped when we've played him. We're too afraid of how strong he might get.
Really, it's more of a toss-up between The Ennead and Apostate, but I'd still lean to The Ennead because a fight against them is challenging and also quite dramatic, what with so many people involved. Not saying Apostate isn't dramatic; he certainly is. Whenever I play against him, I can always hear "One-Winged Angel" playing in my head.
Gloomweaver is a 1 unless you pick an all-melee/projectile team or the first three cards are the relics. His deck has zero synergy and he can't post a significant threat until he flips.
I think the final boss of Infernal Relics is Apostate. But that's probably because I recently watched through Buffy the Vampire Slayer and I keep imagining him as Nathan Filion's character.
Have you guys tried the "Richard Launius Special" for Gloomweaver? I'm curious to find how much more difficult his house rule makes things (I'm assuming the answer is "very").
I haven't tried it yet, but I am very much looking forward to it. His Voodoo Pin tweak is HOT. On the other hand, I still think what I really want for the character is a way to play his relics faster to bring his flip and alternate win condition into play. I've also been considering a version of Vast Following that searches the deck for a relic if there are none in the trash. The idea is more guaranteed ways to get relics into play and punish you for ignoring them.
I think I like the "zombies have H+2 hp" rule, and I like the "pinned players have to destroy their pin before they can deal damage to anything else", but I don't think I'll use the "pins can only be damaged by the hero it's pinning" rule. That seems to be overly harsh to heroes who aren't big blasters, and I like the idea of heroes teaming up to get a pin off of their more support-oriented partners.
I would rather have the pins act normally, except that Gloomweaver plays one card by pin in play at the beginning of his turn. I think it would make him and his pins more frightening, but at the same time, keeping the pins could help to find the third relic faster.
Are you playing on advanced mode? My guess is "no" or the answer would be obvious that it's the Ennead, in terms of difficulty. Gloomweaver is far and away the easiest villain in the game. Easier than the level 1 BB or Omnitron, for sure. I've never lost against him with any combination of heroes. How he got to be "level 3" is a joke, maybe to make Richard Lannius feel good about himself.
Well, let's be fair. In his BGG post, Launius said Gloomweaver started much, much harder and got easier as play testing progressed, and that the "3" rating probably came from an earlier incarnation of the villain. That seems like a believable story.
Yeah, according to those house rules he posted (which sound more like the original rules), GloomWeaver was probably supposed to be much more threatening and god-like. I'll give those house rules a shot and see if GloomWeaver suddenly becomes a monster.
True. Gloomeweaver was never a problem. I do like his theme and his style. ALso, I like betaing the crap out of my likeness in a card. God my card is such a douche to deal with.
The first time we played GloomWeaver, he got out all his relics by turn 3 or 4 and destroyed us. We deemed him very difficult. Then we beat him easily. Then again. Then again. Then again.
Much like Voss, things can go south fast, but when they don't...
Your card is DEFINITELY a high priority in our group. But a well placed (and buffed) Grievous Hailstorm after a few One-Shots and innate 2 damage powers usually is enough to take you and your reanimated zombie corpse out. :3