We played a game last night against Dawn in Atlantis. Because two of our four heroes were from Vengeance, I don't want to go into any of the particulars of how we did it, but we defeated Dawn in three rounds, with a Kraken getting the last blow.
After Dawn's third turn, we knew there was no way to avoid her flipping and becoming immune on her fourth turn, so began discussing how to respond. But then we asked '_CAN_ we do 42 points of damage to her this round?', and found that the answer was Yes!
Having Jim's Hat and a Sudden Contract in Chrono Ranger's starting hand were a big part of our success.
I really can't say much more than that, but Setback was really pushing it to do as much damage as he was doing, and would probably not have survived if we didn't kill Dawn before her turn.
By the way, if the yellow beardy dude on a bunch of Chrono-Ranger's cards turns out to be an alien lizard-guy named Yaz who's published in the expansion after Vengeance, I totally called it last night in my dream.
For the record, I tried to not make this a teasing post. I wanted to share how cool I thought it was that we were able to defeat Dawn before she flipped w/out using any mechanisms that stacked her deck or buried her trash, and without having any sort of particularly luck plays on Dawn's part.
Try reconstructing the game with published heroes, stacking the decks as necessary to achieve equivalent results. If you cannot, then your post was pointing out the fact that Vengeance heroes, at least within certain conditions, are flat-out more powerful than anything which currently exists. (McBehrer has already pretty much said this is so...something about a one-shot that does 8 damage?)
All I will add is I can't wait until Setback gets out into the general public. I think this last build has done a great job of what a "bad luck" super hero would feel like and he's going to be incredibly divisive amongst SOTM players ( I have to be in the right mood to play him as I am inherently risk averse).
Edited: Made a mistake on the previous one, I was looking at difficulty, though I vaguely recall that one being fast as well, not sure if it was 3 round fast.
However the 3 round game was Chrono-Ranger, Greatest Legacy, Team Leader Tachyon, and Golem Unity in Megalopolis.
I've never won in less than four rounds, but I do believe it's possible with a god-draw. I wouldn't have picked Dawn as the villain involved, though. I'll have to see if I can work it out. Any recommendation on the heroes to use? I'm thinking Visionary and Ab'Zero are musts, along with three others (since we're godmodding, more players and thus more Citizens are strictly better, unlike in actual play where this might get you a Citizen Truth).
Off the top of my head with just core game heroes, I'd do Legacy, Fanatic, The Wraith for three heroes. For a fourth, add The Visionary. For a fifth, add Haka. But none of those picks are essential - could do it with most groups of 3, 4, or 5, given lucky draws and tight planning.
Crono-Ranger, Team leader Tachyon, Legacy and either Fanatic or Wraith I'd go for.
You still need a good start, you really need inspiring presence/by any means first round, and the other one puts it in the bag. Then it is all about focusing lots of damage instances on Dawn, which Tach Fanatic and Crono can do well.
+2 martyr is 7 to yourself, 9 to the villain, 10 if you add By any Means. Add Embolden and her base power doing 6 or 8 and it's a quick game vs. almost any villain you can focus down, if you get retribution you can take down the boss yourself.
I was in Insula Primalis with Legacy, Fanatic, Adept and Visionary and Fanatic hit +5 damage. She did Smite the transgressor/Exorcism/Martyr for 34 damage. Then Adept let her play Retribution for 31 damage, 65 in one round, Fanatic died on the environment turn, but finishing Voss was easy at that point.
Wraith starting with a handful of hair dryers would turn into an instant damage machine. Add in increased damage from Legacy and Chrono-Ranger and it will be nasty from Round 1.
Hmm… Legacy, Scholar, Ra, CR, O-X. Legacy plays Bolster Allies and Galvanises for +2 damage to everyone, then Scholar plays four Keep Movings, briging out 1 Liquid and 3 Energies, then plays DDA #1:
O-X reveals a 4-type plating.
Ra reveals the Staff of Ra.
CR reveals Compounded Bow.
Scholar reveals DDA #2:
Ra reveals Imbued Fire; damage at +2.
CR reveals By Any Means; damage at +3.
Legacy reveals Inspiring Presence; damage at +4, Scholar heals for 2, deals three lots of 6 damage [18].
Scholar uses Better Living, regains 2HP, deals 3 lots of 7 damage [96]. Ra plays Flame Spike for 6 damage [104], then uses Pyre [112] and throws the Staff [121]. CR chains Displaced Armory [127] (summoning his Hat), four Eye on the Prizes [151] and a Terrible Tech-Strike [164], finishing up with a shot from his bow [176]. O-X plays Slip Through Time, uses his Blast [200], then plays and uses Rocket Punch [213].
Okay, so that's a silly example, but if you stack the decks you can murder Dawn (or Akash'Bhuta, or anyone else you choose) in one round
I happen to remember that by Chrono Ranger's third turn, By Any Means and Ultimate Target were both on Dawn. Chrono Ranger played two different cards that dealt 1 damage each and then used the Compound Bow to do deal 1 damage two more times. Each of those four instances of dealing damage were increased by two for a total of 12 damage.
That only leaves 68 other points and we had 11 other hero turns in which to do damage. The Kraken did the last three points, so that's 65 points of damage over 11 hero turns for an average of just shy of six points per hero turn. Factor in that the Bounty which increases all damage by one (Ultimate Target?) was on Dawn by the second hero turn, boosting every attack. On Haka's first turn, for instance, an Elbow Smash and his base power did a total of seven points of damage. Also factor in that with the other Bounty, Chrono Ranger got a power use the first time each turn that Dawn dealt damage. Only got to take advantage of that once, but every little bit counts.
Ah! I also just remembered that Dawn had an Ongoing which caused her to hit herself. I think she took that damage twice.
Yes, the Vengeance heroes dished out a lot of damage, but not so amazingly well as to prove that they are overpowered.
The bounty which boosts all damage received by a target is By Any Means. Ultimate Target is the one that gives Chrono Ranger +1 damage to the target and lets him use a power the first time that target deals damage each turn. The ongoing which causes Dawn to hit herself would be Channel the Eclipse.
Just to fill in the gaps there ;).
Sounds like a pretty epic game, anyway. Reminds me of the one we had against Advanced Plague Rat (first time ever for me - we never normally play Advanced anything at home) on the London game day at Leisure Games a few weeks ago, where I played Chrono Ranger and was down to 1hp after about two rounds. The rest of the group managed to gang up to keep me alive for a round longer until someone (can't remember whether or not it was me) managed to actually kill Rat after a total of three or possibly four rounds. Something like that.
At home, I think our quickest win was Iron Legacy in three rounds. I expect our quickest loss was the omgwtf game we had against Apostate last weekend - after previously defeating us only once before (and then not with particularly horrendous ease), he totally destroyed us in three rounds.
