For those of you who use a randomizer (I use the on Spiff's website), I'm curious about your games that have gone terribly wrong as a result.
I just started using it myself, and have now played quite a few, but I got my first rather nasty one last night.
Bunker, Visionary, Expat vs. The Dreamer... AT PIKE INDUSTRIAL.
This was right after I refused to listen to my randomizer when it told me AZ, Fixer, and (?) against Iron Legacy... wasn't going to happen.
Anyway, I don't have my cards handy, but the game was over at the beginning of rounds 4, all due to the environment mostly. The enviroment played 2 cold vats the first two turns, which I didn't have any way of dealing with yet, unfortunately... then the extra damage vat :(. Not a fun time, she flipped at the beginning of the second round, which was nice... but I had been soaking up too much damage by then to live.
Pike + Dreamer + No ongoing destruction handy = bad time :(
I've been using an spreadsheet to track an epic "win with every hero against every villain in every environment" quest (advanced) to keep me occupied until Vengeance comes out, with random number functions to guide my way. (Basically, pick a random villain and environment, and then play two games with 5 heroes and two games with 4 heroes.)
My first set of matches? Apostate in Rook City. The environment having cards that reduced all damage to villain targets ON TOP OF Runes of Malediction? And several cards that made the Apostate deal melee damage which triggered his gauntlets of perdition? That was a fun couple of matches.
I almost strictly play random games and will typically always give the gamea shot no matter what appears. Unless of course the sam or similar set-up appears again shortly after the initial play. I enjoy the challenge, as it makes the games interesting!
AZ and Fixer vs IL isn't that bad dude. I had Fixer single handedly take IL down. AZ can clear his Ongoings in one fell swoop. Plus fixer could keep healing AZ with grease monkey or add damage. Dude you missed out on a potentially awesome game!
You shoulda listened to the randomizer. That's when you REALLY learn all the different character interactions because you are forced to think outside of your box to pull out wins.
Pike vs Dreamer, I feel you. That is rather painful. All of the cards that deal all targets damage sucks against her.
We were very close to already dead before Metero Storm came out to "buy us time" but we eventually realized even if we let Scholar draw his deck, we were going to bite it to superhuman redirections. Also, we didn't even really consider punching out one of our own heroes cause who does that?
But yes, there is probably a set up where we can let Scholar draw his whole deck, let Meteor go down, have Ra off Fixer and let fixer kill them off. It would have taken an hour to get everyone set up so we called it instead.
Yeah... I'm not sure I'd be willing to do damage to a hero to take them out, as I tend to play the game thematically more than to win. We've purposefully had (I think it was) Tempest get killed in a game to get to his ability to destroy Ongoings, but we never considered doing damage to him ourselves to get there faster.
Some heros have to make the ultimate sacrifice if it means stoping the bad guy. I play thematically too so me and Rabit are on the same page, but every once in a while they devolve into a tear jerker at the end haha.
Here's the thing… Technically heroes doing damage doesn't always represent them attacking. Sometimes it could represent them trying to achieve something. Such as Kismet's talisman, I don't really see them hitting the talisman with eye beams or tornadoes of fire. More of them trying to snatch it out of her hands. A hero attacking another hero is them giving them orders to stay back and fight from afar.
I thought you were actually shooting/hitting it out of her hands. Overcoming whatever luck she has to hold on to it. Hence larger attacks knocking it away from her easier rather than Lightning Slash just meaning tempest is actually tug of war with her for it better.
That's what I mean, such as Ra using Blazing Tornado, I don't imagine him summoning a huge fiery tornado to get the Talisman away (actually I do because it's funny, but thematically it's probably not what is happeneing) it's snatching/grabbing/knocking/etc. out of her hand. Same with the case as the Plummeting Monorail, Bunker isn't firing a massive blast of Omni-Cannon, as that would cause a few casualites. I see him standing in the way catching it.
My main point is that not every card represents exactly what you are trying to do, it's more of a guideline for what they are trying to do and you can fill in the gaps where needed.
Him catching it makes less sense to me than him shooting something to slow down it's fall or whatever. Him building up his cannon, then suddenly catching the train and his cannon now being emptied makes even less sense (since the cannon has it's own seperate build up).
To use a different example, a crashing train isn't going to get caught by Cyclops , he's just going to blast it in in such a way to minimize the harm the passengers would have to deal with. But he's still blasting the crap out of something.
I see it as Ra launching a blazing tornado at Kismet; she dodges, but then when Tempest launches a lightning slash at her and she has to twist to avoid that as well, the talisman slips from her fingers and one of the heroes grabs it up.
He could be diverting the energy the cannon has been building up to temporaily boost his suit's strength, catching the train as it falls but draining all reserves in a heroic effort.
Really the only limit of the interpretation is your imagination (and that of the plot limitation the writers impose this issue!)