Sounds like exactly the right time to shout, "ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?!" at the top of your lungs.
I will say that Kaargra Warfang is one of my favorite villains in the game. She demands a different kind of play, in which you specifically try to meet certain challenges while trying to defeat her, and she all but demands a certain thematic RP feeling as you "level up" and throw down in the arena. Her villain targets really feel like formidable opponents, and it feels great to defeat each one, and calling out how many favor points you got in your turn is great fun.
There is no card I despise more than Recharge Mode, bunker's Ongoing Mode.
When this card enters play, destroy all other Mode cards.
You cannot play cards or use powers.
You may draw an additional card during your draw phase. Reduce damage dealt to Bunker by 1. At the start of your turn, you may destroy this card.
This is just trash. Let's be clear: -1 Damage is NOT worth losing both Play AND Powers. I have used it once. I had no Heavy Plating on Bunker, I knew the player to my right was going to burn down all of The Matriarch's 14 Fowls and that we'd all get Pinged for 14x2 1-Toxic hits. So I Ongoing Moded up. Then immediately destroyed it on my next turn. This required me to NOT have Heavy Plating and to face a very specific foe in a very specific situation, knowing very specifically what my teammate was doing next.
Normally, I will have -1 Damage already (Heavy Plating) and Bunker's default power is Draw A Card. This card is redundant and hampers play.
There's only one more use of it: burying it under Omni-Cannon or throwing it away via Flak Cannon. That's it. So I'm often glad I drew this, so I wouldn't have to make a hard choice about what I was going to trash. When a card's greatest reward is "at least I don't have to trash a good card", it is a bad card.
I can deal damage, reduce damage dealt to Bunker by 2 and draw 3 cards per turn with Recharge mode in play, can you?
EDIT: Ninja'ed!
If you go Heavy Plating, Recharge Mode, Gatling Gun and/or Omni-Cannon, you can build up cards, deal damage, and reduce all damage dealt to Bunker by 2. This is what I would consider his tanking mode.
Nin nin nin!
I CAN do that, but I find Turret Mode to be vastly superior for active tanking. "Card Draw" is never an issue, especially if you have Ammo Drop in play. Since neither Recharge nor Turret let you play a card, the only difference is -1 Damage, which is offset by infrequently using Maintenance Unit. You can then put out +1 to all of your damage, still heal if you need it, and nuke people regularly with a variety of weapons (such as the Omni-Cannon, where all my Recharge Modes go).
It's just the least useful Mode. And it requires very specific cards to be minimally effective. To be optimally effective with Turret Mode, you obviously also need specific cards, but to be minimally effective you just need two Power Use cards and you're amazing as a team contributor (even if it's only DPS at that point instead of Tank, which kicks in with Maintenance Unit and Heavy Plating).
I think part of the disconnect is Bunker, to me, is the least effective tank since he needs so many things before he's effective for it, whereas minimal for DPS. I'd rather run Legacy or Naturalist for general tank business. He's just a tough-sonna-witch DPS, in my play style, so perhaps I'm biased.
@EvilToon: You know you draw 2 cards a turn with Recharge Mode, right? That plus the armor plus his equipment that feeds off his handsize (gatling, omnicannon) and Recharge Mode can be really good. That and heavy plating stacks with Recharge Mode with the -1 damage taken. And it's fantastic for trying to find the right cards if your hand is poor.
Think about how a card can be good instead of focusing on situations when it's bad.
Bunker is deceptively not a straight forward deck.
Everyone has their preferences and every card has its part to play. For me, Upgrade Mode is the least useful...until all your stuff is nuked but you have a ton of cards in hand. I also tend to play defensively, so I don't mind soaking 2 damage a turn, dealing 2 a turn, and charging the Omni-Cannon.
I'm aware. But I also know I end up with quite a few cards via Ammo Drop. But unless I'm truly, truly desperate for a stacked -2 damage (which, while nice, is rarely as much a game changer as both Play Card and Power Use in my experience), I can always just use my base power to draw the card to cycle my deck for good cards.
This is the Fickle Fans thread, man! I can be Fickle and Card Negative.
With you 100% on Upgrade Mode for the same reason. No Power Use is miserable! But I still draw a card (if only one now) and Play 2 which is useful when I sometimes have a bunch of great stuff in my hand at the start of the game, or when I'm recovering, but yes, the more stuff you have, the proportionately less useful that card is for sure.
[quote="eviltoon"]
It's just the least useful Mode. And it requires very specific cards to be minimally effective. To be optimally effective with Turret Mode, you obviously also need specific cards, but to be minimally effective you just need two Power Use cards and you're amazing as a team contributor (even if it's only DPS at that point instead of Tank, which kicks in with Maintenance Unit and Heavy Plating).
[/quote]
Turret Mode requires 3 cards in play to efficient at it's specific job (two powers and turret). Thats a lot of setup. Recharge does it's specific job well with just one other (either gatling for damage, omnicannon for setup, or plating for tanking), and is minimally effective with just Recharge in play (for the extra card draw and armor). Just having Turret in play gets absolutely nothing done.
I've had quite a few games with Bunker with either no Ammo Drop or it gets wiped out as soon as it is played. On those days, when I have a hand full of Adhesive Foam Grenades and External Combustions, Recharge Mode is even more appealing. Remember that when you skip your play and your power because of Recharge Mode, you can get 3 cards a turn. And that makes Omni-Cannon happy.
Well, I will bow out of this argument (so as not to clutter this thread) after I handle some responses as not to be rude, as clearly Recharge Mode is loved by everyone but me, so therefore loses for Worst Card.
This is so specific a situation, though, where you gain 3 vs 2. I can't remember any instance where I already had Recharge Mode in play, all the cards in my hand were useless (or gone) when I played it, then I drew two more useless cards and then next turn get to draw 3 cards which hopefully I can play. I admittedly am reluctant to play Turret Mode unless Ammo Drop isn't wiped, but I'm reluctant to play Recharge Mode because it's just so so inactive. Like you said, different play styles. I'd rather play cards or use powers than just draw-and-pass than hope for 3-card-turn-skips. So, different play styles! This is not the Worst Card, just the Worst Card for Me, as it tells me "Go take a smoke break, the rest of the table will handle this", which is (even when the best option as described by you or Foote) the worst designed playstyle, for me.
But Recharge "setting up" with Omnicannon is dubious and choosing to have Gatling be literally the only thing you're capable of doing seems pretty limited. I doubt anyone would play EITHER mode until they had a few cards out. I will concede that Recharge might be used in "I desperately need Plating for upcoming damage but don't have it" situations, but that feels like fighting from a losing position for me. So it can be useful on its own for one turn, or for infinite turns if you just want to do nothing but draw cards, take -1 and do no damage, whereas Turret is useless on its own. That is a factual interpretation I concede to you.
I still would never see myself playing either Mode until I had a few pieces of equipment out.
Fair enough! I also wouldn't play Turret Mode without at least one damaging power out. The other could be the repair unit and I'd be fine with that.
I tend to find both Upgrade Mode and Recharge Mode very situational. I'd prefer to actually be doing something with my turns. With Bunker, my preferred mode is Turret Mode with at least two items from the following list (in rough order of preference): Omni-Cannon, Flak Cannon, Grenade Launcher, Maintenance Unit. Ammo Drop is nice to have in this setup, but not mandatory, in my opinion.
Oddly enough, I've recently found myself using External Combustion more often. It's situational at best, but sometimes you just need to burn everything.
I've actually found that I tend to use Gatling Gun less often than other cards. I guess I just don't care for the discard cost.
I think you vastly underrate how good card draw is if you don't see all the potential uses of Recharge Mode. It's not the best card in the game, nor is it the best one in it's particular deck. But it could honestly loose the -1 damage reduction and Recharge Mode would still have a solid place within the context of Bunkers deck.
Recharge mode has much more value with GI Bunker.
Recharge on original bunker gives you damage reduction, and trades your card play for an extra card. Your first turn you only gain reduction, at the cost of your card play.
Because you have initialize, you can play a card and still draw 2. Next turn you still have reduction and you gain a card draw in exchange for card play.
In my Bunker games I play recharge when something causes using a power to be unavailable or undesirable, and that is about it.
With EoW Bunker Recharge is great for discarding to destroy an ongoing card.
So far Bunker has been the least effective hero for me. I find myself being loathe to "waste" a turn using a mode, because I never seem to get the cards I need, or I just have a hand full of modes. That's when Recharge mode would come in handy, but it nags at my mind to imagine giving up my play and power phases to get more cards. Especially given that base Bunker can get a free card by using his base power.
I'll be the first to admit I need more Bunker time before I judge him, but I have the least amount of fun when I play him vs. all the other heroes I play (including Scholar, who likewise hasn't "clicked" for me yet).
A while back I posted some house rules I use on Bunker. Small tweaks that bring flexibility that is needed to keep my attention ang get things enjoyable. I could fish it back for those interested.
We use a house rule for when we want Bunker to rock that lets you swap modes at the start of your turn, returning it to hand with the option to put one into play from your hand if you do.
It makes him significantly faster.