Thematically, if they are planning an attack, why would it be random heroes from random teams?
Mr. Fixer stays in Rook City, he isn't going to randomly fly to Mars to fight something that is outside his area of concern with Bunker who is part of the Freedom V and Captain Cosmic from the Prime Wardens?
We don't require hero teams to have built in thematic reasons for them to fight together, why would we require villain teams to?
That was my point, not why heroes would want superior force.
I honestly don't see Mister Fixer staying exclusively in Rook City. Sure it's where he is the most, but if another hero calls him up and say they need his assistance somewhere, he would go.
We see Mister Fixer team up with Tempest, Captain Cosmic, Fanatic, Ra, and Mainstay to take on Baron Blade according to Vengeace Blade's incap. That is made up of members from 3 different teams, plus Ra.
Mister Fixer is with Legacy on the Enclave of the Endlings, so we know Fixer has experience in space.
Tachyon, Tempest, Fanatic, and NightMist are the heroes responding to Baron Blade on the Wagner Mars Base after Iron Legacy injured Legacy too badly to go.
So I am of the opinion that any hero would team up together to face off against any villain, with Dok Thorath being the only environment that may be pushing which heroes would appear.
I agree with you Ronway. I'm pointing out that members of different teams join up for all sorts of reasons. Just like villains have all sorts of reasons to team up.
This is the main reason I don’t like Vengeance: it loses focus. If I want to fight a team of villains, I’ll fight the Ennead, who are mechanically designed to work together. Or the Dreamer. Or Kaarga Warfang. I like the game better when the Villain sits in the middle of the table, defining the purpose, twists, and rules of the game. In my opinion, they didn’t need to mess with their original formula to achieve variety, just permute it. Anybody feel like designing an Ennead-style Vengeful Five? 
Well that's a pity. I think part of the problem is the combination of sheer number of targets in play, global effects and When/The first time effects that occur, specially Nemesis ones. For example Friction's deck is hell to track alone just with The Hippo, Revenant and Highbrow in play (plus the Environment). I'm pretty sure complexity would go down if you kept the number of targets around/below H+2 but instead you add some conditional Start/End of Turn effects for each Villain according to X condition. Again, hope whatever is being built is as good.
I know you were not addressing me but I can stress this point besides what was already said. It's much harder to do improvisation if you are just told "improvise" than if you are told "You are in an ice cream shop waiting in line, improvise". Likewiese it's much easier to get your imagination caught in the game if the Villain proposes a conflict and you imagine how to solve it than if you have to create the conflict and the solution. Vengeance offers that, Blade find something a bunch of Villains have in common and organizes them to achieve that goal. Villains (so far) doesn't, I have to imagine why RevoRat is working with Bugbear and The Zhu Long's Operative and what they want to achieve. Just for smacking the heroes is not good enough for me because I'll want to know why they chose to work together and not others. And if I can't imagine that it'll feel it's just more cards for the sake of more cards.
Of course, it wouldn't be. It would be the Superheroes that have been created in that universe. It does not appear random when it's all you've got.
Is there a common theme in my movie example? Cap is a hero out of history. Big green is a mutated human, but as much villain as hero. Blondie is an ancient god. You've got a sharpshooter with no exceptional powers, and a highly trained KGB operative who is as much actress as anything else. There is no theme.
When randomly selecting decks to play SotM, most don't bother with excuses. But I come from a much different background. I played Champions (Hero System). Have been since 1988.
In Champions, creativity is required, if the GM enforces the rules the way they are intended to be. Every Power must have a back story to justify it. Every weakness must be explained. Stories are limited only by the creativity of the author. So, let's hit the random button on SotM video game and see what we get…
Old Man Legacy, Fanatic, and Expatriate vs. Ambuscade in Ruins of Atlantis. Yep, I got an easy one. Heh. Limited only by your creativity.
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Paul Parsons was a man of conviction. He was in France, and the invasion in Normandy was going badly. Even with all of his help, the land groaned under the weight of the the war engines of the Reich. They were prepared for this, and ready to throw the Allies back into the sea. Legacy alone was the keeping the front line from falling apart.
Then he felt he was needed elsewhere. The feeling strengthened, and he knew it was true with a certainty he rarely felt. How anythign could be more important than this moment in the war, Paul did not know. The feeling strengthened into an insane conviction he told no one. He was needed elsewhere because others were in dire need, too. And somehow, if he did not make it right, this whole invasion would not matter at all.
When a hole ripped into reality near him, Legacy charged through into the sweltering heat of a desert. He did not know where he would find himself, but America's past was certainly not expected. He did not recognize much, but he did not trust men that wore masks and shot at angels that bled. He also didn't think young girls with modern pump action shotguns should be in a mid-western town, either. And the greenish blue guy wiht tentacles for hair that took a round from a very modern slide action pistol? Definitely not a sight you would see in Kansas, Dorothy.Then the masked man disappeared, but Legacy could tell where he was by the shimmer it left in its wake. When the invisible man laid a round into the non-human, Legacy acted. racing forward, he planted himself between the victim and the coward behind the mask. A single punch shattered the field, and threw the masked man back into a conveniently placed powder wagon. Legacy sighed, knowing his eyebrows would need to grow back. Again.
"Is everyone alright?" He asked.
The young, gun-toting woman said, "Is that…"
"I am Helena," interrupted the angel. "This is Amanda, and the one you saved is M'kk, but if you have trouble with that, he accepts Mack. tempest, are you able to heal?"
"No rain," said Mack. "I just need to wait for it." The sun beat down in a way that everyone knew denied rain for weeks.
"And the masked man?" asked Paul.
"He goes by Ambuscade, but he was once Ansel," stated Expatriate. "Assassin. Hunter. Remorseless killer. We got thrown here from…"
Again, the angel interrupted. "Another time. Another place. One that we should not discuss."
"You know who I am, Amanda?" Paul asked as he ignored the angel named Helena.
"You are important," said Helena. "You may be less important if she answers your questions. You are in 1883. You need to get back to…?" Helena trailed off.
"1944. Normandy. But the portal closed behind me."
Helena nodded. "Yes, you must get back. As must we, and Ambuscade. A friend of ours, with the unlikely handle of Chrono-ranger, told us where to go if we ever found ourselves in the wrong time. We need only go there, leave a message for him to find, and he will return us all."
"And where is that?"
Amanda answered, "Atlantis." Paul smirked. "Seriously." Paul chuckled. "She's got wings. I've got the heavy calibre guns. Which one of us is less likely to think Atlantis exists?" Paul paused for a second, realizing she was stating this as fact.
"I guess I get to find Atlantis," stated Paul.
"No, Atlantis finds you. You're lost. It knows exactly where it is," advised the angel. "Can you carry Ambuscade?"
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Not hard. You can also switch it up so Expatriate and Fanatic are accidentally thrown back in time by an Apostate / Citizen Dawn team up at the Tomb of Anubis, and land in WW2 Europe needing Legacy's assistance toget home. I dislike WW2 Legacy jumping forward to the future. But you could ice Cap him. Heh. The AG Legacy unlock just matched the villain too well, so i incorporated that into the story.
So the answer to the random question? In comic books, any team-up can be justified.
So why not apply that same line of reasoning to villain team ups? The heroes are on the offensive, and have tracked down villain A to their lair, Villains B, C and D happen to be there when the heroes attack.
And feel free to comment in the Avengers 2 thread after you've seen it, I would be interested in your opinions.
I just imagine that all the villains have each other on speed dial in case they need to gang up to take out a hero or distract the F5 from their Evil Plans. Or there's a kind of Secret Wars thing going on, in which a nigh-omnipotent power is smashing random heroes up against random villains to see who would win (and to encourage sales of action figures).
Why would Magneto, Dr. Doom, Venom, Green Goblin, Dr. Octopus, the Leader, the Red Skull, Abomination, and Loki team up? I don't know. But they do in Lego Marvel Super Heroes. Not the same thing, but there you go.
Hell, does anything unite Flash's Rogues' Gallery other than the fact that they all want to beat up the Flash?
To be on topic, I used Mayday Premium Greens to fit in my boxes. If you're having trouble with them fitting into your boxes you may need to set the cards in vertically rather than horizontally until you figure out a new storage solution or get new sleeves.
On another subject...
It seems mildly insulting to assume the creators didn't come up with a story for the villains to team up in VotM and decided to go with "Who needs story, right? What ARE superheroes anyway? Everyone fights everyone because comics, amirite?"
And to answer your questions about why heroes and villains team up in all of these stories is, in fact, "It is explained in the story".
That isn't the case in an individual game of SotM. Next we'll be talking about how the conceit behind Monopoly makes no sense because the games we played with our parents as kids didn't follow "The Wolf of Wall Street". SotM isn't a comic or a film, but it has a story. Your game last night with Mister Fixer, Young Legacy, and Original the Character from your favorite fan expansion (do not steal) fighting against a homebrewed Gloomweaver in Rook City may not follow the story of Sentinels but there is a story in the "main" Sentinels timeline. The Mona Lisa is a bad music video. The Beatles "Abbey Road" is a terrible microwave-safe plate. A single game of Sentinels of The Multiverse is not a well structured TV episode or film. For folks who are curious about the plot I'd ask the creators in a new topic, and the folks that are criticizing the folks asking about the plot may want to double check on what the story in VotM is before questioning if the plot even matters. Just because the game goes with options rather than rigid retellings of its own story doesn't mean there isn't a plot or that it doesn't matter.
silopolis: Flash's main nemeses, The Rogues, actually work together as theives and follow a strict moral code about hurting innocents and look out for each other beyond a strictly business relationship. Other than that, Reverse Flash/Professor Zoom usually works on his own. Outside of that? I'm not terribly sure.
This is a good point. The Venveance format story (and by story I mean the thematic elements that come through in gameplay) is largely "Man those heroes suck, let's gang up and get rid of them."
For me most of the stories I attach to the fights I'm playtesting are mid-plot battles, and the heroes don't know who the real bad guy is yet, they have interfered enough to draw out the anti-hero squad to keep them from interfering too much.
On a case by case basis:
Ambuscade: hired gun extraordinaire becomes more ordinaire and assembles a team of mercenary B-listers. I assume the heroes fight these guys a lot, because in place of ambition they just need work to build their name. Hero hunting is still Ambuscade's passion, so he signs on easily.
Hammer + Anvil: Dawn has something up her sleeve that we don't know about yet. The other Villains probably don't know why H+A are there, and likely don't trust them. But they add some awesome firepower (spoiler pun!) to the team so they keep those questions to themselves.
Greazer is a bounty hunter, looking for one of the heroes, teaming up is natural as long as he isn't facing competition for the reward. I imagine Greazer/Revorat/Blade would have an interesting post battle discussion if they just beat Setback, and that was Greazer's bounty (although they might be the ones paying him)
I love Rat, RevoCorp's muscle that they throw at heroes, for me this follows perfectly for a group that is ready to start coming out of the shadows and has its hands in every pot.
Miss Information wants revenge. Pretty easy to work her into any fight if it gives her a chance at revenge.
Bugbear I imagine isn't a team up at all, I imagine that is more coincidence or opportunity presenting itself.
Operative is working for Zhu Long, don't know enough about him to know what he wants, so that goes H+A territory for me.
That's 7 of them. It definitely requires you to write the story before you play it, I didn't like the initial release and its "because Vengeance!" plot, but working on the bgg translations of solo villains to Vengeance format really opened my eyes to the fun of building the story of each fight when you have a variety of characters.
Mildly insulting? Why? Every other preview so far gave you a clear reason on why the Villain is up to no good. This one doesn't give you a reason why they are teamed up. For a change it might be told in the cards themselves and it's just a commincation failure. Honestly, it's easier for solo Villains. If you pick each Villain in VotM individually you can have good reasons to fight them as a solo Villain. But the question is why are they teaming up, to what goal, instead of fighting on their own. We don't know. So far the answer has been in this thread "it's comics, Villains team up together to fight team of Heroes". And that's exactly the reason that Vengeance gave of why it was happenging and it was fine, the reason was there and it was coherent with the rest of the story. The previews for Vengeance showed why each Villain hated a particular Hero and why they would follow Baron Blade to get their revenge. We didn't get the story for each Nemesis card but we had enough to make that up on our own, more since most had appeared in previous released cards.
And what I'm talking about is super simple in reality, just add some lines in their backstory/character suplement. For example:
FILTER has decided that some super heroes are ilegal and should not be left without supervision. Greazer's was hired by FILTER because it's ilegal for Captain Cosmic to have those powers but it's also ilegal for them to hunt him themselves not being an alien. Same vein, FILTER branched with Revo Corp because a guy who's power is 'bad luck' is to dangerous to be left unchecked (and RevoCrop is more than willing hunt Setback).
That's just connecting something the Villains have in common (shady corporations, power greed, economical gain) and you can create a story from that.
I guess you can connect in a similar fashion The Operative with Biomancer (since Zhu Long is probably as mystical as Biomancer) and add Bugbear being manipulated into helping them.
Miss Information might see in La Capitan a tool for her goals, providing La Capitan with new tools for mischief which seems to be her only interest.
But it's not there.
For folks who are curious about the plot I'd ask the creators in a new topic…
Again, why? Why in this case I would need to register in GTG forums to ask a question to the creators (which they might as well not answer) where I never needed it for every other SotM product so far?. And in my personal case, I'm not so hot with GTG staff lately.
So are you saying you think >G just gives no context for their hero and villain motivations at all? Or are you saying you felt Vengeance giving us the story that Baron Blade approached the other four members of the Vengeful Five and promised them vengeance against heroes they had grudges against if they helped him take on The Freedom Five and their allies wasn’t a clear enough motivation for why those specific villains teamed up? Or are you saying that a canonical explanation for these villains teaming up not only doesn’t exist but is not important?
Because I honestly don’t understand what you’re saying. I’m under the assumption that >G crafted a story around these characters teaming up and will give us context because that is what they’ve done with each expansion. Assuming they’ll not do that or that the story is not only nonexistent but unnecessary seems to be the exact opposite of what we’ve come to expect from Sentinels of the Multiverse.
Yes, we do not know the reason "why they are teaming up, to what goal, instead of fighting on their own". Yes, I do believe canonical story elements are important. I believe that the story hook for Vengeance was good.
I'm under the assumption that >G crafted a story around these characters teaming up and will give us context because that is what they've done with each expansion.
I'm not under that same assumption. So far previews gave enough information to understand who the Villain is and why the hero fights them. For Vengeance it was added the reason why they were teaming up together. For Villains it wasn't, we got introduced to the Villains the same as other solo Villains.
Heck, the expansion is just called 'Villains'.
The many villains from the Multiverse have been bested by the Freedom Five or Dark Watch or the Prime Wardens or even heroes not from a particular team. Many of those villains are prideful and would not deign to work with others, as their goals would not align. However, some of them have seen the value of cooperating towards a common goal. And those have joined forces, even at cross purposes, to defeat the heroes who have harried them for so long.Some of these villains, such as Plague Rat or Biomancer, are more hesitant to work with other villains. Whereas others, such as Citizens Hammer & Anvil or Sergeant Steel, are more than happy to join forces with other like-minded combatants.
Well, I stand corrected then. A reason has been stated. I had read the product page but clearly didn't remember it. The reason is rather vague which IMO reinforces my point that there is no more background than the one offered so far. I find "just because" unsatisfying though, from what I have explained previously in this thread. And I don't really know why RevoRat and Biomancer would be less willing to cooperate with other Villains than xenophobic S.Steel and supremacist Hammer and Anvil.
But at this point it's clearly just a pet peeve of mine.
That makes some sense. And my reaction wasn't toward people who were skeptical, PePe. I realized after thinking about it that my comment could be construed that way and I apologize.
I was commenting against people who were responding to questions about the story. Gaslighting someone who is curious about the VotM story with questions of what the story is with each individual game of Sentinels isn't cool. Aside from that, most of the forum members here engage in a lot of speculation about the conflicts, characters, and timeline of the whole game. It just feels insulting that people suddenly decided to dismiss speculation into this expansion because a few members were lukewarm on the premise. Assuming >G just decided to leave this part of the game's plot a big, gaping hole that could be filled by random player fanfiction through individual games is just weird. They've attached a story to everything else and allowed players to play with all of the pieces on their own, regardless of if it conflicts with the plot, so them cutting out a story on this expansion would just be out of character and a little underwhelming.
Glad to know that there's still plot to be found!