I find this a very important consideration when you’re planning your approach to the game. How about you?
The heroes who have the greatest capacity to assist the others generally get to go first. In my estimation, Visionary, Tachyon, and Legacy are very good at this. All of them can allow the others to draw cards, Legacy and Visionary can buff, Visionary can give others the inside scoop on what’s going to happen with the villain or the environment. Tachyon is most capable of getting rid of hindering environments and ongoings.
Now, this is dependant on the particular villain and environment. First player having ready access to Ongoing destruction is very important against Blade, Voss, and Plague Rat. First player having ready access to environment destruction is often very important when dealing with Megalopolis, Rook City, Atlantis, and Mars.
The heroes whose main purpose is sheer damage generally find themselves late in the turn order, so the first ones to go have the chance to give them better options, usually through card-drawing or buffs. This is usually Ra, Bunker, and Haka. Ra does have some team buffing, too, so he might show up sooner. Haka I find the best cleanup hitter - Punish the Weak and Savage Mana both benefit immensely from having a round of heroes to channel Haka towards the most delicious targets.
Given that primarily I use random draw to determine which hero to play, no, no it doesn’t make much difference.
I do have the odd game where I choose a hero but I don’t let the villain/environment influence my choice; the aim of the game might be to defeat the villain but it is enough to aim and have fun playing the character.
We usually have Legacy or Visionary at the front, but our group has found Tachyon being last is very useful. If Visionary uses her innate on Tachyon and the other heroes clear any DR/Ongoings/Targets/Environments on the field that are causing trouble, she can usually pump out a few burst cards and follow with a high-Burst Lightspeed Barrage.
My group and I will have to try using her in front next time we play!
I’ll echo the OP’s thoughts. We usually have Legacy go first or second, just because it’s sometimes hard to remember if Galvanize was used after you’ve gone through a (sometimes complex) environment and villain turn. We also commonly have people with Ongoing/Environment destruction go early, so they can remove annoyances like Backlash Field and Forcefield before other players’ turns. In particular, having Ongoing destruction in the first player slot can leave the whole rest of the team most of a round to deal with the minions brought back from a Forced Deployment (versus being in the last place, where you might as well wait for it to kill itself).
We’ve also found that Haka being last is very beneficial. As the OP pointed out, it allows him the most flexibility with Punish the Weak, and it also maximizes the chance that he’ll be able to devour the weakened minions to stuff under Savage Mana. We’ve employed a similar strategy with Bunker going last. If there’s stuff left to kill, he does. If not, he sits in Recharge Mode and loads the Omni-cannon.
I hadn’t really thought of having Visionary in the first slot to give people more options for their turn with her card draw, but we would commonly have her there for Ongoing destruction anyway, so the benefit was gained, even if I didn’t realize it.
Fair point. I guess I do most of my playing solo. In a group, it typically falls out that I state one person should probably go first, and play proceeds in the most beneficial direction. (I’m a stickler for clockwise in all games but this one.)
As a rule of thumb, I generally put environment killers first, followed by ongoing killers, (though more often than not, one hero fills both roles) followed by controllers, followed by heavy hitters.
Of course, diverting from this is often beneficial. Against Dawn, for instance, killing her Ongoings is necessary, but it doesn’t much matter on what hero’s turn they are destroyed.
Legacy is a good starter if you are going for a very fast kill (perhaps Baron Blade or Matriarch). Otherwise, I find it doesn’t much matter if he goes first. After the first turn, Galvanize is equally effective whether he goes first or last, although you do get another turn of benefit if he plays Inspiratial Presence and he is up front.
Tach is usually my leadoff hero if she’s in the game. Ability to deal with Ongoing/Enviroment cards is a nice perk, and her other nice perk is Fleet of Foot, which can be very helpful to have early. Wraith is another excellent hero to go first because of Grappling Hook and IR eyepiece.
Fanatic can get a big advantage out of going first, depending on Environement. If you’re playing on a location that has a +1 damage buff, such as Obsidian Field, she can get the most use out of Divine Focus if she goes early. Yes, I know this is only one card, but with a buff from the Environement it is so much better, allowing her to belt out ~25 damage in a full round. It can make enough of a difference that its worth putting her up early, and she’s not a bad leadoff hero anyway, with her Consecrated Ground and Final Dive.
Haka is great on Cleanup, Tempest is good too (although he has distinct advantages in all order positions).
I find this kind of min/maxing with SotM to be uninteresting, though I know it’s a vital part of the fun for some people. The order we lay out our heroes is whatever order we happen to be sitting around the table, and we play whichever heroes we think are the most fun, not the ones that are sure to be the most effective. Because of this, we can still be challenged by non-Advanced versions of the villains, which we like.
It’s not min-maxing, it’s strategizing. If you find it to be uninteresting, well, that’s your buisiness I suppose. But it’s certainly no different than talking about team synergy between heroes.
One of the things I love about the game is that it’s possible to play it so many ways - none of which are right or wrong, they just are. 8)
We don’t pick heroes based on much more than who we’re interested in playing, although if someone like AZ or Bunker has already been picked, it’s not often someone will pick another slow-build hero. We also (usually) don’t purposefully set up a hero order - we usually sit based on who’s willing/interested in managing the villain and environment, to be honest. We tend not to pick heroes based on villain or vice versa, although sometimes we’ll take the nemesis because it’s cool. Environment is often picked based on the villain, thematically, but not always (and I’m starting to do this less, lately).
I mostly agree! I’ve got absolutely no problem with other people getting fun from thinking about the best hero combinations and/or the right order to sit, and sometimes I enjoy that, too, but usually I get my fun elsewhere.
Heck, sometimes I don’t even care whether or not I win!
I personally just find it nice to discuss something I love with other people who love it just as much as I do.
Our group can really, REALLY stress over Hero turn order and making sure we have various damage types, as well as making sure there aren’t too many heroes relying on Equipment/Ongoings/time/etc. Oddly enough, our most memorable and often most enjoyable games come from us throwing caution to the wind and just picking the craziest team we can think of!
Still, I find it very enjoyable to plan out turn order with my friends. It can really make or break a game for us. We’ll have to try lightening up more often and just play the game without worrying about who we’re fighting with which team at which place. I’m sure we’ll surprise ourselves.
My wife and I have recently started playing randomly. We are enjoying it quite a bit as we get to discover new synergies and combos. But, when we lose my wife usually declares a rematch an we tend to optimize for butt-kicking.
That said, I find that Visionary in front of the party is always nice. “Who needs a better card this turn?”
We personally have Fanatic or Legacy up front. We use turn order ONLY if we have those two. Since we typically play 2 games, the second turn order is whatever we were in - we each prefer a hero. I personally don’t like having Haka and Bunker out at once.
As for Tachyon, I personally prefer playing her 2nd to last. Her being first killed me really quick. I’ve found that it gives me some time to think and use other cards people have used to my advantage. Besides, I don’t like reading villain cards… (the person who’s first in hero order takes care of the villain deck and the last one takes care of the environment.)
I’m curious to know why Tachyon going first has gotten you killed really quick. The only time I can see an issue is against Chairman.
I also think you should re-work your orginization system. Having first player be in charge of Villain turn gives that player an extremely long time when they are responsible for doing something. Likewise the last player doing the environment turn. Really in a 4p game, you should have 2nd player do villain and 3rd player do environement, if you want to orginize it like that. Otherwise just ask for volunteers.
We’ve always had 1st player handle villain and last player handle environment simply to facilitate clockwise activity; it flows most naturally with the round’s sequence of turn order. We’ve never had any issues with one person doing something for too long, as we’re usually all involved in the environment and villain turns - one person’s just flipping and reading for us.
