Second Session/Third Game Report (with some questions)

[Chromium_Man]

I want to talk about my third game (our second session total) and I have a few rules questions, so I feel like I'm straddling the line between General Discussion and Rules.  Someone tell me if I should post in the other forum next time :)

 

The last time my cousin and I played Sentinels (which was our first session, we played two games) we lost rather brutally to Omnitron on Mars using Haka, Tachyon, and Legacy.  We decided to try him again using 4 characters and different ones at that.

 

Villain:  Omnitron

Environment:  Wagner Mars Base

Heroes (in turn order):  Tachyon, Rook City Wraith, Absolute Zero, Bunker

The game started off pretty much like the last time we played.  We knew about Sedative Flechettes this time so we weren't so surprised when it came up.  The one mistake we felt like we made last time was getting too hung up on taking out drones and devices and not concentrating enough on the big bot himself. 

At one point about an hour into the game, we noticed that Omnitron was still around 60 HP and all of the heroes were about half.  Our equipment got wiped out 2 or 3 times by some ill-timed Pervasive Red Dust, which brings me to my first question from the game:

1)  If you discard an equipment card to destroy PRD, can you then put that equipment card into play from the trash instantly as the "When this card is destroyed..." effect?  If not, then that's the first time we cheated this game.

After a while, we started to settle in and we were plinking away at Omnitron and keeping his drones and devices in check.  Between Rook City Wraith's inherent and IR Eyepiece, we were keeping both decks in check.  Even when Sedative Flechettes came out we managed to get by.  Little by little though, both decks started to creep up on us.  At one point, we were dealing with Maintenance Level, 2 Villainous Weaponries, and a Fire in the Biosphere (though I got to Transduce some of that Fire damage back at Omnitron which was fun).

Those 4 environment cards got Terraformed, but we got lucky on the cards Omnitron put into play because of it (all drones and components).

The turning point of the game came when all of the heroes were on the brink of death.  Maintenance Level was in already in play and the natural Environment card for the turn was Oxygen Leak.  No big deal, I say, I have a handful of cards with AZ and I'll get rid of it at the end of the turn.  Then the Environment deck plays a second card of Maintenance and it's Fire in the Biosphere.  Bunker's dead, and everyone else is close behind, but then I realize that Oxygen Leak should effect Fire in the Biosphere, right?  Second question:

2)  Bunker had four health and Fire in the Biosphere deals him 4 Fire damage.  Is it reduced by Oxygen Leak to 1 or is Fire in the Biosphere 2 separate instances of 2 damage and thus reduced to zero?  We played it the second way.

So bullet dodged (or so we thought).  All the heroes are down to less than 10 HP.  Omnitron Terraforms 4 cards again and we once again get extremely lucky on the draw and manage to survive another villain turn thanks to some well placed Throat Jabs.  (Omni is at about 25 HP now, btw).  Tachyon has a huge trash, Wraith has a ton of equipment out, AZ has all four equipment cards in play, and Bunker is in Turret Mode with Flak Cannon and Grenade Launcher out.  I think that we just need one more turn to win when I realize the last damage Melee damage reflected from one of his drones by Tachyon and thus, Lightspeed Barrage is useless.  We managed to whittle down Omnitron's drone army, and left Omni with a handful of hit points and a few very weakened drones, but we were next to dead and I didn't think we'd survive another Environment AND Villain turn.  We held our breath while when we flipped the Environment card and....METEOR STORM!  Omni got out a few more drones on his turn, healed a little, and did zero damage to our immune heroes.  Tachyon skipped her turn to destroy Meteor Storm, Wraith got Omni down to 1 HP with Inventory Barrage, and Omnitron and his last drone died simultaneously to Coldsnap at the beginning of AZ's turn. 

Final HP totals:  Tachyon:  2, Wraith:  1,  Absolute Zero:  1, and Bunker:  4.   

We were both left exhausted and ecstatic and agree that this game is freaking amazing!  Can't wait to play again next week.

Two final questions for those of you that read this far:

3)  If AZ has out Cryo Chamber and Nullpoint Calibration Unit and he uses Thermodynamics to deal himself Cold damage, is it two damage or three damage? 

4)  If you read the whole report, does anything jump out at you as something we did wrong?  We're having a little trouble keeping track of everything that's going on and had to "rewind" a few times to fix things we forgot. 

Thanks for reading, guys!  It's great to be a part of this wonderful community.

 

[arenson9]

@Chromium_Man

I want to talk about my third game (our second session total) and I have a few rules questions, so I feel like I'm straddling the line between General Discussion and Rules.  Someone tell me if I should post in the other forum next time

I would have put this in Rules, but it's not a big deal.

@Chromium_Man

 The last time my cousin and I played Sentinels (which was our first session, we played two games) we lost rather brutally to Omnitron on Mars using Haka, Tachyon, and Legacy.  We decided to try him again using 4 characters and different ones at that. Villain:  OmnitronEnvironment:  Wagner Mars BaseHeroes (in turn order):  Tachyon, Rook City Wraith, Absolute Zero, Bunker

Mars can be tough on equipment-heavy heroes and you had three of them: Wraith, AZ, and Bunker.

Rook City Wraith's power is often thought to be quite weak. Did you use it correctly? It puts an environment card into play or into the trash, not back on the deck, so using it often means getting extra environment cards in play.

@Chromium_Man

 1)  If you discard an equipment card to destroy PRD, can you then put that equipment card into play from the trash instantly as the "When this card is destroyed…" effect?

Yes

@Chromium_Man

  2)  Bunker had four health and Fire in the Biosphere deals him 4 Fire damage.  Is it reduced by Oxygen Leak to 1 or is Fire in the Biosphere 2 separate instances of 2 damage and thus reduced to zero?  

Correct

@Chromium_Man

3)  If AZ has out Cryo Chamber and Nullpoint Calibration Unit and he uses Thermodynamics to deal himself Cold damage, is it two damage or three damage?

I don't understand the question. Thermodynamics deals either 1 fire damage or 1 cold damage. If you choose fire, then Cryo Chamber reduces the attack from 1 to zero and AZ takes no damage. If you choose cold, then Cryo Chamber increases the damage from 1 to 2 and then Null-Point Calibration Unit turns the attack into healing, so AZ takes no damage and heals 2 HP.[/quote]

@Chromium_Man

Thanks for reading, guys!  It's great to be a part of this wonderful community.

Welcome!

[Chromium_Man]

Thanks for the quick reply!  My brain must've stopped working for that AZ question:  I forgot to mention that I had Focused Apertures out too. My confusion with Cryo Chamber comes from the fact that it increases cold damage dealt to AZ, but I was debating if he was actually "dealt" damage with NPCU out. 

 

As for RC Wraith, I think we played her correctly, but now that I think about it that ability isn't great. We were basically trashing the environment card every turn if she had nothing better to do with her second power (thanks Utility Belt!), but I guess that's only a good ability to have if there's an advantageous environment card. Come to think of it, that might be how meteor storm got into play late in the game. It was really helpful when there were three cards left in the environment deck and we knew one was the self destruct sequence and we gambled and ended up trashing it. It was really the adhesive foam grenades that kept the environment at bay. We had another wonky situation where we wanted to use Wraith's ability but there were no cards in the environment deck. I remembered reading that you don't shuffle a trash until you had to draw a card so we decided that she couldn't use her ability that turn. I'm pretty sure we did that right. 

I'll definitely put my next (hopefully shorter) report in the Rules section. The more I type, the more I realize that's where it should go. 

Thanks again!

 

 

[Katsue]

@Chromium_Man

Thanks for the quick reply!  My brain must've stopped working for that AZ question:  I forgot to mention that I had Focused Apertures out too. My confusion with Cryo Chamber comes from the fact that it increases cold damage dealt to AZ, but I was debating if he was actually "dealt" damage with NPCU out.  As for RC Wraith, I think we played her correctly, but now that I think about it that ability isn't great. We were basically trashing the environment card every turn if she had nothing better to do with her second power (thanks Utility Belt!), but I guess that's only a good ability to have if there's an advantageous environment card.

Well, Pervasive Red Dust is advantageous if you flip it on Wraith's turn, but that probably has about a 50% chance of happening. The big issue with Mars is Maintenance Level. You really need to keep that under control, so Tachyon and Wraith should use their Environment destruction cards on it, unless Tachyon doesn't mind losing her trash.