New Player, Introductory Talking, Probably Uninteresting

Hello world. I picked up Sentinels of the Multiverse yesterday and have, since, played four games. Two by myself. One that was apparently bad and unrecommended. I would point out at this point that I've thoroughly enjoyed the game, but really, who would buy a game, play it four times including twice on their own in two days, and then specifically hunt out that game's forum to say that they didn't like it? ...Well, jerks would.

I actually picked up Sentinel Tactics first, a few weeks ago - and still haven't played it yet, because a great deal of my skirmish gaming time has been going to Imperial Assault recently. (I've got a campaign going with my sister, it's close to the end, but she gets to play Empire next time.) Right beside it was a set of plastic-packed dirt cheap promo expansions, so I thought "how could I lose?" and grabbed a couple. Turns out they were for base Sentinels, not Tactics. And thus, I ended up with Miss Information and the Final Wasteland before anything else.

(...Which isn't really a good combination, thematically. "Mr. Parsons, I know you're currently in a horrifying wasteland surrounded by New Jersey Devils, tikbalangs, and Slenderman, but you really need to go get a 'cat' out of a 'tree'. Mu ha ha ha ha ha ha.")

While I had no idea what I was looking at, and frankly looking at Miss Information's cards to get an idea of what the game is like is a losing bet to start with because her mechanics are strange and unusual, I was intrigued enough to pick up the game a few weeks later, and still haven't fought Aminia to date. Well, like I said, she's tricky. I started at my weekly game night where five of us, playing Haka, Tachyon, Fanatic, Bunker, and the Wraith took down Baron Blade in the Wagner Mars Base with unusual ease. I suspect that the Wraith getting her Micro-Targeting Computer and Razor Ordnance on the first two turns was a strong influence, while Haka doing what Haka does cleaned up pretty much anything other than Baron Blade in short order, and Fanatic pulled out Absolution on her first turn, wailed on the Baron with it for a while while burning down her own HP with Embolden, and then pulled out an 18 point Wrathful Retribution to finish him off. So he didn't get to do much or, to be honest, present much of a threat after his first two Slash and Burns - it was really Mars doing most of the damage. But I honestly like Baron Blade, so I do hope he gets his chance to pummel a team I'm playing to the skin of our teeth before long.

Other games were my sister (Fanatic: she's a big fan of 'rend, slaughter, devour your enemies!' recently) and myself (Tempest and Tachyon) against Baron Blade in Megalopolis, where he managed to get nine cards in his trash before flipping, but then got worn down by withering police fire; myself in a Sidekick-randomised game where the app decided to give me Tachyon and Tempest again, but to add Legacy to the play, against Citizen Dawn on Insula Primalis, where she proved tenacious by starting out with Citizens Hammer and Anvil and getting Return With The Dawn on her first play; and myself with the Visionary and Ra against Omnitron in the Final Wasteland, where I learned why two heroes are not really enough heroes.

I said that I honestly like Baron Blade, but really that's not unusual, because I honestly like all of the characters. I'm proving quite taken with Dawn's harsh cult-of-personality zealotry, and while I originally thought that Aminia was going to be a fairly typical femme fatale, I then read her incredibly tragic backstory and may have "aww!"d aloud. I had expected that Haka would end up being my favourite hero character - I've a friend who's big on Hawaii and Hawaiian culture, and described Haka to him as "a Polynesian Hulk", which drew his attention - but Tachyon ended up stealing my affection. Faster than I could notice, natch. While her cards and mechanics work beautifully - a good Lightspeed Barrage in the late game is a wonderful finisher - I'm also tremendously fond of her always-on-the-go cheerful Dr. Horrible quoting personality. (I'm still curious as to who the "dude" on Fleet of Foot who is most definitely "not (her) nemesis" is.)

...Anyway, I'm sure none of this was new, interesting, or enlightening in any way, but since I always like babbling and listening to babbling about games I like, here is some babbling about a game I like, and since I'm sure almost everyone who visits this forum also likes that game, maybe you'll like 'listening' to said babble. Thank you and goodnight.

Welcome to the forums and I'm glad you've enjoyed the game.   If you are playing solo I would highly recommend getting the Sentinels of the Multiverse Video Game by Handelabra since it will keep track of affects for you.   It also allows for more quick play solo since you don't have to clean up anything once you are done.  Also, while the manual never fully specifies it you should play wiht three heroes at minimum otherwise there are some balancing issues.    

Welcome to the forums!

 

SPOILERS

Citizen Dawn is my favorite villain to battle, too. More than anyone else, she has exactly the right balance of cards to feel almost like there is a human being behind her plays. Often I end up with games against her being knock-down, drag-out fights that come down to the wire. Even when I lose to her, I have a lot of fun.

Welcome to the forums, feel free to ask any questions you may have here. I'm sure there are several of us that can shed some light on any rules/lore that could be confusing for someone just starting out.

Glad to hear you're having so much fun withSotM, Kadrin. By the sounds of it you should fit right in with everybody here. ;)

I'm quite certain that all of us have played a game 'solitare' style, espcially before the digital version came out. The game is deffinitly better with more players, but sometimes you just get the urge to control it all yourself.

Just out of curiosity, what parts of the game do you have? I'm guessing the Enhanced Edition(Big box with the Freedom Five on it) and the extra stuff you mentioned.

Heya, welcome to the forum, and to the Multiverse of the Sentinels in general ;). It's always good to hear the anecdotes of a new person as they relate how they totally destroyed (or were totally destroyed by) various villains and enjoyed playing certain heroes and stuff. Feel free to tell us more or ask any questions and stuff :D.

Incidentally, Haka isn't Hawaiian - he's a Maori (from New Zealand) :).

Welcome tot the forums (I'm sure you'll be getting that a lot). Like Powerhound said, getting the digital version is a good idea, because not only does it keep track of everything and make single player games easier, but it may also teach you some mechanincs that you missed the first time. I realized I've been misplaying not just omnitron, but also some of Dawn's cards after looking at the digital version, so it's a good way to show you how to play in the physical version properly. It also helps teach you some of the more complex heros you'll see in the game (I'm looking at you, Argent Adept fans). If you ever get tired of just the base set, I would reccomend the rook city/infernal relic double pack to start, because not only does it come with two bonus expansions, but also another box for storing all the cards. Shattered timelines is also a good choice because the villains are varying difficulties, and the heros are pretty solid (A lot of people I know started with chrono-ranger). This is also a good place to get tips on heros, villians and the like, because the people here are awesome

Argent Adept! Wooooo!

 

But uh, achem, yes. Welcome! This is a wonderful game. Definitely try the digital one-- big community on Steam, but the tablet's great too!

Thank you all very much for the welcome!

Yeah; while I didn’t know that before I played Omnitron, I saw it looking things up afterwards, and had already been shown in that game that it was a very wise thing to insist on. Even without me being terrible at everything and losing a lot, a lot of Omnitron’s attacks were doing H-1 damage, which meant that with a Twist the Ether on him, Visionary could just cancel all of his attacks. Which I don’t think is quite the most balanced possibility.

I will definitely look into the game; don’t really have my home desktop set up at the moment, but I should fix that anyway.

…That’s another character type I really enjoy. Man, I should just make sure to subscribe to the Everything To Do With Tachyon RSS Feed.

That’s right - Enhanced Edition as a title in the top left, and Baron Blade behind everyone looking menacing and having a cool scar.

Oh, indeed; it’s not the Hawaii All Blacks that perform the haka before Rugby League games. I wasn’t sure whether I could present him as at all related, but I looked up “Polynesia” on Wikipedia (which, as we all know, is never wrong about everything) and apparently New Zealand and Hawaii both count as Polynesian, even if they’re as far apart from each other as you can get while still being Polynesian.

Which makes sense. Polynesia was always a favoured civilisation in Civ 5 island maps specifically because they could get in boats from the start of the game.

I’m thinking the Rook City/Infernal Relic pack, yeah, after looting the game store I got the original promos at to see if it has any more of them. I like the idea of having more Nemeses around.

Welcome to the game.

I got hooked just a few months ago myself.

Old player, gibberish talking, probably unintelligible.

Welcome to the forums, pull up a train pun, try not to step on Ronway's discarded pants, and book your ticket for the swivel chair ride.

 

And what is this crazy talk about bad an unrecommended? I also like your words, there are a lot of them and they were nice and friendly.

This guy. This guy know how to forum.

Don’t feel bad about the two hero thing; my fiancee’s and my first game after buying the base set was Haka and Legacy vs Omnitron. One Adaptive Plating Subroutine later…we very quickly learned to play two heroes each.

Welcome! I too recommend expansions, not only because they give you cool new heroes and villains to play with, but also because having a wider variety of characters keeps the original characters fresh longer. After finding many things to love in the expansions, I find myself discovering new appreciation for many of the older heroes and villains.

One of the subtleties about Sentinels I enjoy is how each character not only has distinct flavor text, but also their decks play differently in ways that reflect the character’s powers and personality. Using combinations of simple mechanics like draw and discard, the designers have given the characters unique feel.

The example most frequently cited is your beloved Tachyon. The flurry of cards she burns through just feels fast – and the way she builds inexorably toward a big finish feels like you’re accelerating toward a gigantic collision. All achieved through fairly simple deck mechanics.

Legacy’s card choices really feel like you’re both looking out for your friends and encouraging them, with a healthy dose of self-sacrifice thrown in. Speaking of self-sacrifice, one poster memorably called Fanatic’s deck “dramatic.” She’s always willing to take damage not to protect her friends so much as to mete out justice with a flaming sword!

Haka is supposed to enjoy battle. You can see that in his card illustrations, but you can also feel it in his strong card draw and self-healing, coupled with his steady regular damage-dealing and huge surge capacity. He doesn’t control much, but his deck was born to fight it out, and you’ll be able to do so more confidently with his mechanics.

In later expansions you’ll run into Nightmist, who deals with dark powers at fearful cost to her personal safety in order to keep our realm safe. Her gameplay wonderfully encapsulates this theme. And Parse, an Asberger’s-Syndrome-afflicted heroine whose mind was merged with Omnitron’s vast computing power. Her gameplay is extremely analytical and precise.

And on and on. Even the villains – the inexorable advance of the moon as Baron Blade torments the heroes is accomplished through the simplest of card mechanics, but the pressure is real. There’s a gret deal of artful subtlety in Sentinels of the Multiverse. I hope you enjoy it for a long time to come!

Oh Nightmist oh Nightmist When it clicked how her mechanics worked - the game became something entirely different.

That first triple heedless lash into 1/4 oblivion - oooh. Dark Visionary and Tempest was rewarded for setting it up by getting incapped - but Nightmist didn’t care. She’s a free spirit like that.

I still like finding combos Guise can do and thinking of Nightmist....   Let's play Gritty Reboot and then using Tough Choices to play I Can Do That Too! to copy Nightmist's base power and hit Guise for one damage to draw a total of five cards in his turn.   With Guise likely taking some more damage before his next he has set himself up for a bigger combo next turn.  

Can't…resist…picking…nits… The All Blacks are New Zealands Rugby Union team. The Kiwis if I recall are their Rugby League team.

Whew, got that out of my system.

Welcome and glad you're enjoying the game. Loving it as well and just can't seem to get enough. I've even got my kids into it which is amazing.