How do you beat Akash'bhuta?

Other Games SotM Game Engine
1

I had the Amazon version of the randomizer select a medium level difficulty game for me. Here is what it selected:

 

Heroes- Legacy, Chrono Ranger, Expatriotte

Villian- Akash'bhuta (advanced)

Env- Tomb of Anubis

Success rate ~75%

 

I played it a few times and got beat easily. So I decided to try it against the normal villian level to make it easier, still lost easily. I decided to add Haka and drop legacy to beat some limbs as I was struggling to manage the limbs which had better results as I managed to get him below 100 but in the end I still lost. I am not sure how many times I tried to beat him, but I could not get it done with 3 heros. I am fairly new to the game, but with a success rate of 75% I thought I could manage a win especially if I made him easier (non advanced version). So how do you beat him?

 

2

Are you focusing on the limbs instead of her? Brambles can be a large pain in a H=3 game. Also, because of how she works, her difficulty can swing pretty wildly depending on the environment used. The more targets in the environment deck, the worse she gets. The tomb has no shortage of targets thats for sure.

3

I am not anywhere near as in depth as other people here, but being able to deal multiple targets damage, especially in the case of being able to deal all villain targets damage, can be very benificial, as you will be dealing Akash'bhuta damage directly as well as again indirectly when you manage to destroy the limbs.  Bonus if the damage can be boosted.  Expatriotte, with Submachine Gun, Assault Rifle, Hair Trigger Reflexes, almost any ammo (especially Shock Rounds), bonus with help from Legacy.  My memory of Chrono Ranger isn't good enough to know what, if any, multitarget damage he has.  Also, Haka with Rampage + Savage Mana (and maybe Punish the Weak, though very situational) can be very useful, potentially allowing him to triple dip damage against Akash'bhuta (first being the initial damage done by Rampage, second being all the damage caused by limb destruction, third being damage from Savage Mana and all the buried cards destroyed earler, not necessarily in that order).

4

Chrono does have the weapon Danny-boy (did I remember that correctly??). But the amount of targets it hits depends on the # of bounties in play I believe.

5

Nightmist with Oblivion is another good one for dealing with multiple limbs.

6

Yes, you deal two fire damage to a number of non-hero targets equal to the number of bounties in play. Similarly, the Masadah deals irreducible damage to one target equal to the number of bounties in play.

It sounds like you may have got pretty unlucky in your battle - Legacy, Jim, and Expatriette sounds like a pretty solid combo of heroes against Akash'Bhuta (who is female, btw ;)). Chrono Ranger can do some very nice damage with even one damage buff because pretty much all his one-shots let you plink something for one damage (and the only soak Akash'Bhuta ever gets is via her Mountainous Carapaces, in which case you attack them, not her), so he can destroy stuff pretty quickly. Expatriette is a similar story, naturally, what with all her possible damage options through her guns. Legacy can spend the game doing his usual thing of buffing everyone and playing whatever else seems useful at the time, naturally :).

When fighting Akash'Bhuta, the thing to do is attack any limbs which come out. This is the main way of dealing her damage since it's much faster to blast away at the limbs and have her hit herself as a result. With Chrono Ranger in the group, you have a bonus in that if you play "By Any Means" on her, she takes +1 damage from everything. Meaning that whenever she hits herself for your detroying one of her limbs, she hits herself for an extra point of damage. If you put the Ultimate Target on her too, you get to use a power the first time she deals damage each turn (I don't think the target matters but you may want to check whether it specifies that she has to hit a hero target or not…I don't think it does, though). So with just those two bounties on her you could nuke one of her limbs, at which point she hits herself for +1 damage, which means you then get to use a power and shoot another one of her limbs (or whatever else looks good ;)). In general, getting out as many bounties as possible is good so that you can boost the damage of the Masadah and/or Danny Boy (though I don't think I've ever used the latter). The Whole Gang is a useful bounty to use in a game with lots of targets since you can whittle down two targets at once (one of which has that bounty on it), then destroy the bountied one which will let you insta-kill the other one automatically (as long as it's at 4hp or below, of course). The Compound Bow is a very very nice weapon too, dealing some pretty amazing damage once you have a buff or two (since even if you only have a +1 to damage, the Bow will then be dealing 2+2 damage).

The environment could be annoying - as has been mentioned, the Tomb has quite a lot of targets so Akash'Bhuta is bound to get plenty of free card plays. With all the stuff getting blown up all over the place, Anubis is likely to be a bit of a pain too, once he comes out. However, both Chrono Ranger and Expatriette have means of taking out environment cards (via Temporal Grenades and RPG Launchers, respectively), and Jim even has the means to search for his (via Displaced Armoury) if need be.

I play all my games with just three heroes (there are two of us playing, so one of us plays two heroes), and we never find Akash'Bhuta to be massively difficult. She can certainly be annoying (Rejuvenating Entropy and erm…the one that destroys ongoings can both be a pain in the arse), but it's not very often that she kills us, hence why I was thinking that you probably just had a bad deal that game.

One of my favourite set-ups is Legacy, Ra, and anyone versus Akash'Bhuta in Insula Primalis, just because it can be so much fun - the ideal situation there is for the volcano to come out when Ra has Flesh of the Sun God in play (or can put it into play before the volcano actually goes off). Then you just sit back and laugh as all the limbs get blown up while you ignore the volcano completely - it does mean that Ra has to use his Power phase on Flesh of the Sun God for the remainder of the game (unless you have a Flame Spike to let you use something else as well), but it's Ra…he can nuke stuff without needing to use a power ;).

7

The Randomizer doesn't necessarily understand the particular problems of particular combinations of decks. Akash'Bhuta combined with an environment, like the Tomb of Anubis, which has a lot of targets, is significantly more difficult.

8

Before Shattered Timelines came out, I think the Tomb of Anubis was actually the most difficult place to fight Akash'bhutha.

9

Thanks everybody. Maybe I will give it a go in a different environment next time I play.

 

10

By Any Means (hereafter BAM) actually has Akash'Bhuta's picture on it, so that's an obvious one to play, but in addition to putting it on her, since you have lots of ways to get Bounties back from your trash (Ranger's Mark puts one directly into play and immediately plinks for +1 against the target of BAM, while Bounty Board gets them all in your hand and plinks, so the former is better if you have a choice), you might in the early game put BAM on a Limb just to ensure that the Limb dies fast.  In general, most games will stabilize after several turns, so surviving the early game is often worth making a few short-term sacrifices for; letting an Arboreal Phalanges keep hitting you for several turns often isn't worth slightly accelerating the kill against the main body of a tough villain like "Abby".

The Ultimate Target is somewhat less ideal for the purpose (it shows Plague Rat, against whom it is indeed excellent), not only because it doesn't boost others' damage, but also because it doesn't self-destruct when the target leaves play.  Thusly, you will nearly always want to put it on Akasha herself, even if you're having problems with a Limb (the exception would be if you have Jim's Hat, or can fetch it with Temporal Displacement, as this will let you destroy the "orphaned" Ultimate Target card after the limb is gone).  Unfortunately, Akash'Bhuta herself deals damage somewhat less often than a lot of villains; her Primeval Limbs that deal damage all say "this card" is dealing the damage, and so The Ultimate Target will not trigger unless it's on that limb, rather than on Akash herself.  In some cases, this can be worth it, particularly if you just want to kill the Limb in question fast.

As already stated, The Whole Gang is nice for taking out two limbs at once after they've been whittled down, but don't neglect Kill on Sight either; CR needs lots of cards to function at full capacity (though this is less true of him than of some other heroes, such as Tachyon, Haka and the Scholar, and he's often better at getting the cards than those heroes).  Dead or Alive is particularly nice to put on a Limb, particularly one that's fairly easy to ignore (eg Arboreal Phalanges if one hero is "tanking" for the whole party, or Living Rockslide if you don't have Hunter & Hunted in play); you could put it on Akash herself and gain HP every round for the whole game (unless she destroys it), but this wastes the opportunity to draw a card when a tough Limb finally dies, which is also nice.  Mountainous Carapace is perhaps the best target for DOA, since you absolutely must kill it, but are often holding back some of your best attacks so as not to waste them while Akash'Bhuta herself is protected.

My fourth Sentinels game ever was against Akash'Bhuta, and it was one of my favorite early games.  She really does make you feel like you're fighting a mountain.  I finally had a rematch against her recently after about a forty-game hiatus, but she went down a little too easily in that match to be entirely satisfying - the Visionary used Wrest the Mind to make her Rockslides hit Abby herself every turn, while Visionary was tied up in Brambles and couldn't damage herself or destroy the Limb.  It got fairly silly, and has left me wanting a real challenge the next time I face her.  I figured that meant using the Final Wasteland, but it sounds like Tomb of Anubis is another great option.  (They do after all come from the same set, so they were designed to go together.)