Let's face it: we can strategize as much as we want, but luck always has been, and always will be, a factor in Sentinels. If everything was "fair" then there would be no tension to the game. We'd all play the same heroes in the same way and always win. We've all been crushed by the Chairman a dozen times, only to have a game with those perfect draws where you're prepared and totally crush him. Luck is a thing. We're still having fun.
The randomness is basically WHAT I love about this game. :) My prior favorite game was Cosmic Encounter, which has a similar element of randomness making each game different, yet still stable enough to allow the players to strategize.
I don't mind a degree of randomness that prevents a person from winning by going first all the time, but when it feels more like the game is playing for me than I am playing for it, then it feels like I might as well not even be playing. Sentinels normally doesn't have that feeling for me- yes, there are still good draws and bad draws, but if you know what you're doing, you can win more often than you lose even against the likes of Iron Legacy. Fickle Fans feels like it's enough to make me quesiton that- 5 points is 25% of what's needed for victory or loss, and since it's changing both piles, that amounts to a net change of 50% between the two. That's a pretty big difference.
Although I strangely like Tales of the Arabian Nights... I don't know why, and even those that I play it with know that it goes completely against what I generally enjoy in a game and have commented on such before... For those who don't know, that game is almost entirely luck.
You like Tales of Arabian Nights because it's amazing and hilarious.
Also, it's less of a game, and more of a choose-your-own adventure with a board. Since there is basically no strategy at all, you play it with a different mindset than you play most other games.
That may well be the reason… I do tend to think of it more as a story than a game, now that you mention it.
Seeing how fast Warfang plays her cards (2 a turn at least), you can be certain that you WILL see Fickle Fans, and Go Back In There, at least once in each game. It WILL happen - you just have to plan accordingly. Just like you do with the Organization's prison break, for instance.
Keep your Favor one point below the villain's at all time except for the last winning turn, and Fickle Fans becomes an advantage. Keep enough wounded Gladiators out so that you can earn the points you need to reach 20 favor as soon as Warfang leaves the arena. This is all about making a good show - and in a good show, the "obvious" winner must lose at the end after a big flip of the situation.
I like this fight. It took me some time to find the above strategy, and it hurts a lot to keep yourself from being too succesful until the very end, but it feels awesome.
Yeah, the one thing that was missing from this discussion at its start is how Fickle Fans can swing things totally around from the villain to the heroes. The crowd might just betray her.
Plus, it helps to put on the Gladiator soundtrack.
'That Card'?
'That Card' always references Devestating Aurora.
Actually, this is what I was referring to by "rewarding you for doing poorly".
I don't agree it's a reward for playing poorly. Even the best team could have draws that cause them to have slow starts, get overwhelmed early by the Gladiators, have Title deck draws that get pulled immediately by the villains, or be in an environment that disrupts your setup more than the villain. Because all of those are luck based not skilled based. Even if it helps you there no guarantee you don't go back down because the second one enters play or because Kaarga herself is out in a tight game making it meaningless as she wins anyways on her turn.
It's interesting that Christopher brought up Spite. If you don't mind, I'm going to respond to the same question:
"How do you feel about the Potential Sidekick from Spite's deck?"
Answer: I don't feel about it at all.
While the intent in the Safehouse mechanic is for the players to build up and prepare for Spite to flip, functionally Forced Entry comes up so often, that it has become senseless to bother with the Victims at all. I just leave them out there as a Delayed Blast Heal for Spite, and ignore the Safehouse Mechanic. Forced Entry annihilates the cost of protecting the victims in the first place forcing it to be paid again, and the result is the Victim card still heals Spite, just later. Why bother sacrificing for no significant gain? When Spite flipped in the several times we did go with the mechanic, we never had more than 2 Victims in the Safehouse when he flipped. The cost of that strategy is far too high for 5 damage per Victim card, when you count all the costs for all the victims ever put under the Safehouse during the game, because all of those accumulated sacrifices are the Real Cost of feeding the Safehouse.
So if you are looking for a parallel to Fickle Fans in Spite's deck, it isn't Sidekick, it's Forced Entry. The cost players must pay to deal with the card is directly proportional to the success they have had in dealing with Victims. More Victims rescued means more cost to rescue the same victims. By not bothering to save victims, Forced Entry is valueless to Spite. Very Heroic of us, yes?
That might change if I were to have Wraith for IE or DW Visionary to keep Forced Entry out of the game.
Consequently, we just ignore the victims and go straight after Spite, and he gets to continue his serial slaughter until jailed. Potential Sidekick happens if it happens, otherwise, Spite just healed 3-5 again and we mourn an innocent Victim card.
I go one step further and just don't play Spite.
I'd actually forgotten that he even has victims!
We have a house rule that at the end of his turn we can put one victim in the safehouse out of the game, and we use the number out of the game for his flip damage (instead of the safehouse)
It gives reason to save the victims, and keeps the tension of Forced Entry for those we've pulled off the streets but haven't gotten into proper safety yet.
I don't know if that will work for other players, but it works great for us.
We haven't pulled off a game where no victims get destroyed yet, but one day we will.
I like the sound of that house rule. It leaves the victims there long enough to make it chancy, but gives you a way to make real gains.
...I like it.
The best way to save victims against Spite is to do ridiculous amounts of damage.
I can relate to that. That Samaritan is on his own if we ever do play Spite. We've had too many Forced Entries or On the Prowls blow him up whie we were saving him. Hopefully someone wrote down that soup recipe of his…
Potential Sidekick is a pal, though. Not a close enough pal to save, sadly, but a pal all the same.
Potential sidekick is more valuable on the field he<s like double TLT for free as long as you leave other victims laying around to content Spite. I concur forced entries come by too often to try and save them and the penalty for not saving them is a few HP more on Spite who already heals so much it doesn<t do much difference.
THIS. This is what it's all about. You have to put on a good show for the fans, that's it. You're fighting to win their favor, not to "defeat" the villain.
Sorry for the necro, but we just played Warfang for the first time not that long ago, and we had Fickle Fans play twice. The first time, we were ahead by 3 or so, and we were like, *unimpressed face*. The second time, though, we were down by two, and Warfang had 19 favor, and Fickle Fans won us the game.
I know it was a super-random win, but it felt great, like we were in an arena in hostile territory, fighting for the crowd's favor against some serious hard-pipe-hittin' mofos, everything was stacked against us, and we won by the skin or our teeth. We played our butts off in that game, and the last-minute Fickle Fans win felt more as if we had been rewarded than as if the game had "cheated" in our favor.