So someone on the forum mentioned playing through as the Dark Watch. "Ho ho," I said naively. "That sounds like a good time. I'll use the Dark Watch team (Dark Watch Expatriette, Mister Fixer and Nightmist - the only 3 available on iPad) against every villain in the most thematic environment for them, in alphabetical order."
As you can imagine, I'm stick on The Chairman in Rook City. So, anyone want to give it a go? The Chairman, Rook City, DW Expat, DW Mister Fixer, DW Nightmist (in that order).
The closest I've managed to get was getting the Chairman down to 20 and the Operative down to 3 before Nightmist conked it.
I'll give it a try at some point today. Rook City and any villain is rough normally. The best scenario I would hope for is both Prison Breaks coming up early.
That someone would be me. This is my thread on the subject: https://greaterthangames.com/forum/topic/dark-watch-challenge-8106 . I didn't stick strictly to themes because I didn't want to beat my head against various brick walls. The Chairman in Rook City is really, really tough with ANY team. The Dark Watch team would need stacked decks to an extent that exceeds DW Nightmist's deck-stacking capabilities. And even then it's likely to be a grind.
Wouldn't Spite discard before getting a chance to look at the top 3 cards? Or do the cards he discarded count toward what DW Nightmist would normally reveal?
I don't do the video game, but I just tried a physical game. I completed the team with DW Setback in the spirit of the game. And I won! This is modulo the usual caveats of a physical game: I certainly forgot some effects. I even know what some of them are; I know I forgot several times effects that would have helped me.
I got the underbosses and thugs cleared away while most of the team was still active (flipping The Chairman). Predictably, Nightmist went into Mist Form and holed up for a while. There were only a few cards left in the deck, including both Prison Breaks. But DW Mr Fixer has an incap power that lets you put a card from a trash under the associated deck, I had Tony Taurus out, and DW Setback has an incap power that lets you optionally discard cards from a deck. So I kept recycling harmless cards like Undivided Attention, while digging for the Prison Breaks. Once I had both Prison Breaks out of the deck, I could go on and do other stuff.
Meanwhile, I had Toxic Sludge out, which was rapidly taking The Operative down low. (Not The Chairman, as he is immune.) At some point Nightmist came out of the Mist Form, brought out a Mist-Fueled Recovery for 13 health, and started bringing out her relics: Amulet of the Elder Gods and Starshield Necklace. (In retrospect, I probably shouldn't have bothered with the Necklace.) At that point there are many ways to win, but one of the easiest was to go back in to Mist Form and just redirect damage away.
One of the rules I forgot sometimes was The Chairman's retaliation damage when a villain target deals him damage. That would have ended the game sooner.
I don't think DW Setback was crucial to the team; the ability to discard from the villain deck was very nice, but I think there were other ways around it.
One rules question I was unsure of: DW Expatriette has an incap power to reduce the next damage dealt to a hero target. When Nightmist is immune from damage, does that get "used by" or does it keep accumulating?
The would have to be dealt damage and Nightmist in that case is immune. So that power wouldn't be used up until a hero could actually take damage.
I tried this in the app and got demolished. I didn't have the damage output necessary to deal with Underbosses and Thugs. Really didn't help that the only tool Mr Fixer got the whole game was a Pipe Wrench I needed pretty much any other tool.
Setback isn't in the video game, so that route is out for me! I'm keen to beat it with just the 3 available DW characters. I know Christopher strongly believes that you can beat any villain in any environment with any team (except the two or three known unwinnables) - "Without incap shenanigans", IIRC.
I think either Mister Fixer needs meditation or his redirect style in his opening hand or Nightmist needs to go into mist mode super early to have a chance. The trouble is that when the thief comes out, suddenly every equipment/ongoing that you can play is at risk.
I spend a lot of time using Expatriette to feed Mister Fixer - if he can keep his "do damage to everyone" card out, that can be a gamechanger.
Not sure exactly what counts as "incap shenanigans". You're obviously very unlikely to win this game without some incapped characters. Mr. Fixer's incap of putting cards from the trash under a deck is obviously going to be useful.
The Thief fortunately has super-low health, and The Fence also is relatively soft.
I may try again with the three characters you listed, and playing the redirects correctly this time.
Did you think about swapping Ex-Patriette and Mr. Fixer? Mr. Fixer can take care of The Informant without playing a card, for instance.
That was specifically the example that inspired Chirstopher's comment, in fact!
I like the idea of keeping the character order the same for every game, but if you feel like it's not possible without shifting them, I'm open to changing it up.
Killswitch - Spite's discard from the get-hit-and-discard-your-top-five card goes off after the triggering power has been fully resolved. This includes whether that power triggers any other powers, though after each of those the drug effect would also trigger as I seem to recall it's whenever a hero uses a power, rather than "the first time" :(. So DW Nightmist would be able to look at her cards but then get hit and have to discard them all and the next two :P.
Stuff that triggers on a power use goes off after the triggering power has been resolved (unless it triggers other powers, in which case it will go off after the final power has finished resolving). Stuff that triggers on a card play goes off before the text of the played card.
Not entirely true. If you play an Ongoing or Equipment with static effects like Fortitude any reaction that would deal damage would get reduced by one. If the Ongoing or Equipment has a come into play effects those will wait to trigger until that response occurs.
Yeah, probably, since Shu might not come out at all. OTH, I don't think that's still true on Advanced, unless someone thinks there's a way to take out the other eight Ennead in five rounds.