So my group of regular players has fought her twice now in 5 player games, one normal, one on advanced. Both times we absolutely smoked her, it wasn't even competitive. We even avoided KOing her the second game because she was finally due to flip and we wanted to see if she got any scarier.
She did not.
Stealing cards is scarier when La Capitan does it, even in her VotM version. Chokepoint never threatened anyone with serious harm, I'm not even sure she took any of us below 20hp.
Now, I don't have her deck handy or I'd go into more detail but am I wrong in this finding? Has anyone else had a fun and competitive game against her or did we just have two extremely unfavorable matchups/draws for her?
My group fought her with Termi-nation AZ, Unity, Bunker and I think Santa Guise. We were able to beat her, despite half of our team unable to get going.
What does she need to make her more of a challenge? Anyone have any house rules that seem to give her some pep?
The reason I ask is because I have some altered versions of villains on my site (Ambuscade, Gloomweaver) which have been house ruled to be more interesting, and if there's a good change to Chokepoint, I'd love to include it in that pack.
I would make all her single-target attacks hit all hero targets instead.
Edit: And/or increase how much she reduces and increases damage on her flip side for each hero who's cards are face-down in her play area. Probably go for both, as she's apparently too easy before the flip.
When I want to make villains harder, I generally pick an environment that either gives them extra plays, such as Rook City or Atlantis, or that has some kind of combo with them or makes up for their weaknesses. Some minionless villains are better off with minion-heavy environments.
I actually haven't found a good combination of Chokepoint + environment yet. My next attempt will will probably be advanced + Rook City.
When the Villain uses H for cards, it gets harder with 5 players. When it uses it for damage, it gets harder with 3 Heroes.
Pity to read that even in Advance she is not much of a Challenge. Still have to play against her though. But looks like Mini Villain Expansions are not made tough enough.
Eh, I'm not sure about that. It depends on the villain and how often the H is used. Voss, for instance, can be easier when he's starting with only three minions and doing 2 and 1 damage on his flipped side, as opposed to starting with 5 and doing 4 and 3. The Ennead, too – Stealth Bot can nearly shut them down single-handedly in a 3-hero game.
I also found the two games I've played against chokepoint very easy. I played once with my sister and once with my gaming group and both times the reaction was "thats it." Then again, my first 2 games against Wager Master both ended with easy wins on turn 2 but he proved harder in later games. I need a larger sample size before I call her a 0 but yeah it seems she is one on the weaker villains.
Voss doesn't kill you by dealing damage, he kills you with Forced Deployment (and sometimes the ships). 5 Heroes have less trouble dealing with it (usually) than 3 since they have more tools they can combine against it.
The Ennead usually doesn't use H for dealing damage. Some cards do, but most of their damage comes from their Character Cards. They use H most for card destruction. I'd say Ennead is fairly balanced all along, just a tad easier with 5 in Advance than with 3, but still so hard in both that it's irrelevant.
Well, I should have completed my statement with "or frustrating to play against". Ambuscade and Chokepoint on one side, Miss Information and Wager Master on the other. I don't mind though, I play my own Ambuscade variant, but prefer mean ugly Villains =)
Edit: I don't know what's your point Trajector though. That never losing to a Villain doesn't tell if it's a hard one or not?
You start with fewer minions – which means fewer minions on whatever turn Forced Deployment comes out and it means you can start attacking Voss directly much earlier and at lesser risk.
When I play against Voss with 5 heroes, my strategy is to keep a minion alive so he doesn't flip, build up, then go after him once I've got powers and such to deal with his much heftier damage.
With 3 heroes, the strategy is to wipe his board ASAP and just pound on him from the start – it ends up making for a much quicker game. More or less, I've seen the Forced Deployments and ships much more often in 5-hero games than 3.
The Ennead usually doesn't use H for dealing damage. Some cards do, but most of their damage comes from their Character Cards. They use H most for card destruction. I'd say Ennead is fairly balanced all along, just a tad easier with 5 in Advance than with 3, but still so hard in both that it's irrelevant.
They do, in fact – a lot of their fire attacks, including one that hits everyone, do H-based damage, usually H-2. Ancient Magics, Blast of Flame, Death's Grasp, Mass Overheating and Sun's Fury all do H-based damage, all but Blast of Flame and Death's Grasp hitting multiple targets. Keeping Unity as an example, a 3H game means Stealth Bot tanks everything, a 5H game means her board is getting wiped early and often.
Also, a 3-hero game means much less chance of something like Set and Atum both coming out at once.
I guess there are different ways to measure “hard.” Is it win percentage? State of the heroes at game end?
If you have some dire situation that you know will lose you the game (e.g. Forced Deployment) but you figure out a clever way to avert it and win in the end, was that game “hard?”
I’ve also only played two games against Chokepoint, and won both times. Once she didn’t even flip over. While not terribly exciting, and not really “hard” in any sense, I’m looking forward to playing more games against her (especially with equipment-heavy heroes) to see how she holds up. Maybe she will, maybe not. Anyway, my point is that I’m happy to class her with the other 2-difficulty villains like Apostate, Kismet, etc. I always win against them, too, and I think 2 is a reasonable level for them. A perfect record against a villain doesn’t define their level in my mind.
I don't have much experience (yet) with Chokepoint, but she was an easy fight both time. Granted, Chrono-ranger can be very effective against her.
However, I like the way she plays, especially once flipped. It's not the hardest of puzzles, but I find it interesting. But, well, I alos like fights against Ambuscade and Gloomweaver, even if they are easy, because they let you experiment without too much stress. And sometimes win - Gloomweaver utterly destroyed Dark Watch in a game today.
Yes I would have liked her to be more challenging that I find her right now, but more variety in "easy" villain is a good thing for beginners.
If you find Chokepoint too easy, I'd suggest changing all her single target damage to H-2 or H-1 targets.
Voss: I don't know exactly what's your point? Voss uses H for setup (harder for 5), deals damage on his flip side (would be harder for 3 Heroes, but it's 2 instances of H so, not that much) and all their minions deal fixed damage values (harder for 3), his ships uses fixed values for destruction and card play so it slighly benefits 5 Heroes again. I do think overall it favors 5 Heroes than 3. And in any case, I still think that the real kicker is how well your team can deal with Forced Deployment.
Ennead: Well, you mentioned all cards that deal damage. I consider that most of their damage is not dealt with cards but with their character cards. But yeah, when H is used to deal damage to ALL Hero Targets instead of just one it's worse with more players than with less.
In any case, my statement is generic and there are always exceptions. The basis for that is that a Villain play is worth more than a Hero play, so when H scales like that it benefits Villains. When H is used for damage, the net total of having more Heroes ends up giving you more plays and HP despite the higher damage. Other factors of course messes it all up.
I've only played against her twice. The first time I foolishly only used the three Termi-Nation promos and got demolished. The second time was with my brother who had two major damage dealers (I can't remember who exactly), and I had Legacy and Visionary. Even with purposely stacking Chokepoint's deck using Visionary's powers we won handily.
