Yeah. Tough one. But my wife and I have yet to be successful with a 5-hero team versus the Dreamer, so we decided before we even played that round that if we went down, we'd suffer the loss of five heroes and save our mulligan for a later round.
Just played my first three of the series, with no fatalities so far. My A-team consists of Legacy, Fanatic, Chrono-Ranger, Wraith, and Visionary.
I was a little concerned about the Ennead, as I didn't get great draws to start the game, but a well-placed Take Down and some Precognition managed to keep their worst cards out of the way.
Kismet was an utter steam-roll; the poor girl never stood a chance against C-R's onslaught of gunfire.
When dealing out against The Dreamer, I was particularly taken aback when her very first projection was a Dark Hero...but then I saw that Fanatic had an End of Days in Hand. After flipping The Dreamer quickly, End of Days took out 6 projections in one go, making the endgame dead easy.
In case you haven't seen it yet, I added a Leaderboard sheet that ranks you based on what round you are on. So far, there are over 75 games!
THE JIMENI SQUAD, PART III
“What are we up against, Visionary?” Legacy asked.
Visionary just shook her head, as her younger self, the Dreamer, screamed and brought forth some scary projections.
The team was horrified by what they saw: a whipacorn, a couple of creepy looking toy masters, an ape, an arachnoid.
They did their best to fight them off, killing projection after projection, and as they took them all down quickly, it seemed like stillness had returned.
But the Dreamer erupted in violent nightmares, as a new group of projections emerged, tearing into the team.
Tempest fought off the urge to bring down a squall or a grievous hailstorm, and tried racking his brain to remember this spell for bringing out a cleansing downpour, but it just wasn’t coming.
A couple of Wild West gunmen joined the fight, but they didn’t stick around long.
Soon a blast tore through the area as a nearby wagon exploded. Our heroes suffered immense damage, but the projections took a small beating too. Even the Dreamer couldn’t escape unscathed. Meanwhile a time portal burst open, lashing out waves of energy, as Tempest fell down, shuddering, unconscious.
And then the Dreamer unleashed ever more projections, as her nightmares raged. She screamed out with night terrors that bore deep into the heroes’ minds.
One by one, they each fell down, muttering.
Visionary looked at all her fallen comrades, as she fell to her knees.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, the Dreamer’s screams still plaguing her mind, as she lost consciousness.
TO BE CONTINUED...
GAMEPLAY
We thought we may actually succeed with this one when we got the Dreamer to flip in the first round. Then hell was unleashed. Tempest was the first to fall with a Sustain the Portal card. But the rest of them were undone with an evil Violent Nightmares-Night Terrors one-two punch, with projection cards in play before Violent Nightmares even came out, and us already fairly low on hp. We finished with three projections under Dreamer’s card and Dreamer was down to 2 hp, I believe.
We lost and decided not to use the mulligan.
The War Report, Rounds 7-9
Parse - Captain Cosmic - Argent Adept - Absolute Zero - KNYFE
Citizen Dawn @ Ruins of Atlantis: I was pretty nervous about this one. My team had not done well against previous horde villains. But that earlier team didn't have the Captain. His Cosmic Crest absorbed the first salvos from Dawn and Battery, then his Constructs allowed us to patiently set up while Dawn merged with the sun, with Adept's healing keeping everyone fighting fit. Parse, meanwhile, neatly nerfed Dawn by removing her auroras of total destruction. No contest.
La Capitan @ The Block: Same song, second verse. Maria Helena's crew came out, were foiled by Sub-Zero Atmosphere, and were brutally beat down by a jacked up KNYFE. With some careful HP management, the Adept got the Time-Crazed Prisoner to hit La Capitan with the whole environment deck. It wasn't long before the end.
Also, I had a question about the hero cards that La Capitan collects. The digital version seems to indicate that cards underneath other cards (for example, Mar's Self-Destruct Sequence pile) are still valid targets. It seems really cheap, but can you target the captured Ongoing and Equipment cards with destruction effects, such as Unity's innate power or Sarabande of Destruction? I held off from doing that this battle, and dealt with her damage-buffer collection the old-fashioned way.
Plague Rat @ Pike Industrial Complex: Fast and almost deadly. The Rat's irreducible melee damage is fatal to Constructs, and the environment really wasn't helping matters. The Adept became infected from a nasty bite, and only a Healing Conduit and some judicious plinking from AZ saved him from incap. On the plus side, he led the charge with his now-boosted Scherzo of Frost and Flame while KNYFE piled on the damage. In her last turn, she used For the Greater Good twice (I had to diagram her turn) and put the Rat down for good.
Conclusion: I'd fight these guys again over another bout with Dreamer, any day.
Here is how it works: cards under other cards have no text. They have no hp, keywords, effects, etc. However, they still maintain what type of cards they are: hero, villain, or environments. Cards under Self-Destruct can be targeted by cards that destroy environment cards, because they are still environments cards, even though they have no text. The same thing works by La Capitan. The cards under her have no text, they aren't equipment or ongoings, but they are hero cards. Cards that targets certain types, won't work, so Unity can't destroy one of those cards. Cards that work on hero cards (e.g. Freedom Six Tempest), will work, since it is still a hero card.
Miss Information vs. Prime Wardens.
This match started with Misplaced Memo and Explosion in the lab.
By the second round Tempest had Cleansing downpour and a Dynamic Syphon. Which meant that damage was being healed every time it was dealt.
A cat in a tree showed up after a few more rounds, but was immune to damage so Fanatic chastised it.
Every hero was at -1 taken pretty quick, and we cleared Cat as soon as the second target arrived so we could bounce lowest, finishing it off with Fanatic using Final Dive.
It took 14 rounds to flip Miss information, at which point everything was at full hp and the heroes had dealt a total of 22 damage to villain targets.
When she did flip she died. Highlights include Fanatic using 2 cosmic weapons and 2 autonomous blades on her turn, and an 18 damage cataclysm from Captain Cosmic.
Round 1 environment play was Mission Control, and the heroes started cycling Vernal and Reclaim to throw cards that would go in play on top of their deck, so it was easy to get ahead of her destruction. So much so that we ended the game with 29 non-character cards in play, which of course doesn't include the 18 constructs Cosmic Destroyed with cataclysm.
The game took 3 hours and was one of the most tedious experiences I've had since standardized testing.
I've never run into MI being this bad, and wow, I don't ever want to experience that again.
I actually had the ability to drop her that turn if she had the -2 damage taken, but it would have involved beating Fanatic to a pulp and then Wrathful via Argent Adept and his 5 instruments and 8 songs in play.
Figuring out new and exciting ways to damage dynamic syphon enough times to heal everything back up to full is fun for about 5 minutes.
(Seriously, worst game ever.)
Sorry.
THE JIMENI SQUAD, PART IV
Meanwhile, back at Freedom Tower, Tachyon and the Wraith were trying to contact Legacy, but it seemed something was wrong with their communication equipment, and no messages were getting through.
Haka and Ra entered, just returning from seeing the latest “Avengers” film.
“There’s something wrong,” Tachyon said, as she pored over computer files. Omnitron-X phased into the room.
“I’m getting bad readings,” she said.
“Computer’s malfunctioning,” Tachyon said. “That’s suspicious.”
“I’ll go take a look,” Ra said, but the doors of the next room shut and locked on their own, leaving him isolated from the group. Feeling unsafe, he put up a flame barrier.
Wraith dug out her infrared eyepiece and Omnitron-X did some time-shifting to try to figure out what was going on. Only someone with insider knowledge can be causing these disruptions and preventing the team from communicating with Legacy and his group, as well as hacking into Freedom Tower’s systems.
There was a betrayal going on, and there was only one other person in Freedom Tower.
“Aminia,” Tachyon whispered.
“Call me Miss Information,” boomed over the loudspeakers.
Their foe now known, the battle, as they say, was half over.
But it wasn’t easy on the team -- seeing their former acquaintance hurt them, and having to hurt her in their defense, took its psychological toll. Ra’s own flame barrier noticed his distress and fired back -- at him. He got a little charred, but otherwise OK, and soon the barrier disappeared. And he was eventually melt the lock that trapped him and join the rest of the group in the battle.
Miss Information’s attacks were slowed as Tachyon went into hypersonic assault-mode and left her stunned. Haka pounded into the ground, protecting his friends from danger.
It was a long, tough battle, but eventually Miss Information was down, begging for mercy, and the heroes, ashamed to look at her, called the police to come take her away.
Standing outside after the police left, the group heard a strange sound from above. The sky ripped open and large branch-like tentacles wrapped around Omntron-X, pulling her into the hole in the sky. The other four grabbed on and were pulled in too.
On the other side, reality seemed a little distorted. Things weren’t moving quite the way they were expecting. Another huge limb tore through the “ground” and lunged at the group.
“What’s going on?” Wraith asked.
“From the evidence before me and consulting our previous records, I can ascertain, with nearly 99.99998 percent accuracy,” Omnitron-X said, trying to wiggle free of the brambles that had ensnared her. “... that we have entered the Realm of Discord, and this is Akash’Bhuta!”
TO BE CONTINUED...
GAMEPLAY
With a nice combo of Wraith’s Infrared Eyepiece and Omnitron-X’s Timeshift, we were able to stop some of Miss Information’s really bad cards from coming out while hastening (at least a little) her flip. After that, we just laid on the damage cards we’d been storing up, while preventing her damage as much as possible (a couple of Hypersonic Assaults, a Ground Pound, maybe a Throat Jab). Ra’s Flame Barrier, coupled with Miss Information causing heroes to damage themselves, led Ra to doing even more damage to himself, but eventually he was able to shed it. It was a long, tough battle, but I think the next one wound up being even longer. All heroes survived. I didn’t record final HPs, but I don’t think anyone was dangerously close to death.
Ah, that makes sense. Thanks for clearing that up! I knew there was something wrong with my reasoning there.
Well, I was told I'm supposed to post about my rounds. The Enneads weren't very nice to me, but I didn't draw well on any of my heroes to begin with. I lost Chrono and AA unfortunately. However, these two were replaced by Chrono to AZ and AA to Cosmic. I really like Cosmic so I was alright with that switch. We walked all over Kismet, poor girl didn't know what was going on. Sadly, the Dreamer, which I am told is nicknamd the "hero killer", did not like me at all. I am on my second string with AZ, Ra, and Guise, I still have Nightmist from my first team, and I am down to my last team member with Omni-X. I hope Miss Information doesn't hurt me too badly.
Thanks for sharing!
Monday arrived and so the Sentinels of the Halifax Multiverse gathered to begin the epic challenge!
#1 against the Ennead was pretty straightforward; they never got a single additional villain out, and once Nuit went down the rest followed shortly. Sky-Scraper played lots of tricks in what would be a recurring theme..
#2 versus Kismet was also a pushover. She never had a chance.
Then we came to #3, the Dreamer. As luck would have it, the environment helped us almost 100% of the time, with the Water Trough even buffing Tempest's multitude of lightning attacks for most of the game. Sky-Scraper had the projections hitting one another all the time, while laughing at the Whipacorns' attempts to stop her. In the end, an untimely Hayes brother knocked her down barely enough for the Dreamer to finish her off. Just before The Argent Adept stepped in to deal some timely rhythmic damage and finish the battle. Expatriette will take up the banner, but Sky-Scraper will be remembered for her gazelle-like valor!
I've had a run of good luck since we erased that time the Dreamer destoyed everybody (dark days, dark days.)
Miss Information played mostly clues and Scholar managed to keep from drawing his forms, so once she flipped Tachyon and Scholar were set up within a round to begin wailing on her. Additionally thanks to the matainence bay once Miss Information's mega-discard card was played I was able to choose which keyword was revealed (Ongoing) which deferred some of the effect of that play. No one was in any real danger.
Baron Blade got close, but Cleansing Downpour helped and no one ever dropped below eight.
Citizen Dawn, that's where the real trouble was. I played a dangerous game of chicken with the Citizen's healths and the environment forced a few kills to flip Dawn. That was almost the end of us. Two Devasting Auroras and a few rounds of Dare-Assualt-Battery were enough to convince me that this is where they would fall, but once Dawn flipped back we were ready with an Inspired and Galvinzed Tachyon who quickly took down the congregation and made way for Scholar, Tempest, and Absolute Zero to begin their assault. Lowest health: Scholar at 3.
La Capitan was easier than usual, partly thanks to a helpful Don't Dismiss Anything, which not only played all helpful cards, but also all Ongoing/Equipment which let them stay ahead of her stealing. The boat didn't come back (although Siege-Breaker did and he never had the common decency to hit Absoulte Zero,) and the enviornment was mostly helpful.
I was worried about Plague Rat, but the environment was equally unkind to both (two checmical explosions to begin the game,) and I used the boost from infections to make Absolute Zero wreck everything around him (another lucky Don't Dismiss Anything helped with this.) Over in three rounds, and my only regret is that I didn't push Zero harder; he could've ended the game at 2, but instead I was too tentative and he ended up at 4, never again, never again.
Ambuscade wasn't too dreadful. His first devices included the cloak and two reactive platings, so his damage output was low to begin with, and since I've been playing his challenge exclusively lately he was actually easier.
A lesser man would be worried going into the next round, but since when has the Chairman ever posed a threat?
After lurking and watching this thread for a while, I felt it was time for me to throw my hat into the ring.
My lineup is as follows:
Slot 1 (Support): Legacy -> The Naturalist -> The Sentinels
Slot 2 (Control): Wraith -> Visionary -> Parse
Slot 3 (Utility): Omnitron-X -> Tempest -> Captain Cosmic
Slot 4 (Wild Card): Absolute Zero -> Setback -> NightMist
Slot 5 (Damage): Bunker -> Haka -> Ra
Welcome!
I will tell of my battle with Ambuscade from his perspective:
The superhuman hunter crouched invisibly behind a stack of crates, the gentle clank of his formidable armory drowned out by the cacophany of the meteor storm raging outside. Moreau was patient. He would wait as long as it took. The prey was trapped here. After the meteors had interrupted his initial skirmish with the prey, Ambuscade had used the downtime to patch up the few scratches he had received and repair his weaponry. He was fresh. Ready to kill.
Still, he couldn't shake the feeling that he was being watched, somehow. Ridiculous, really. His cloaking device was state-of-the-art, and he would have noticed anyone nearby long ago. Still the sensation of being stared at--evaluated--persisted. At least the storm of space rock finally seemed to be slackening in intensity. Ambuscade shifted slightly, preparing to head out on the hunt.
And then, from somewhere deep within the station, an jarringly dissonant note rang out. Ambuscade's cloak let out a *phut* and exploded into sparks as the hunter faded into view. Frantic, Ambuscade spun around, raising his shield and peering through the gloom of the darkened station. The storm had moved on, and all was eeriely quiet.
From the shadows, the hunter heard a quiet *twang* and he saw it. The arrow. Time slowed down as he watched the gentle arc, the perfect trajectory. As the arrow slipped around his shield, Ambuscade mentally saluted the prey-turned-hunter.
Everything went black.
My battle against the Chairman is likely the easiest I've ever had against him, and within the depth project he was less of a threat than Baron Blade. In the end I won, and while there were some concerns, I was never too close to death.
First card play was their healing card and first Underboss out was The Fence. This might be the best possible opneing against the Chairman.
Scholar led with a Don't Dismiss Anything, which led him to a Keep Moving, which let him play a second Don't Dismiss Anything, and while the outcome this time wasn't entirely positive (Know When To Turn Loose and Zero's reclaim from the trash card) what it brought out far outweighed the cost.
Chairman flipped at the start of his second turn, and while he brought out The Contract whose Hired Gun led to eight damage across the board, that was about all the damage we saw out of them for the rest of the game as he and his organization faced three rounds of Hypersonic Assault, coupled with a Cleansing Downpour/Mortal Form to Energy healing cannon.
It ended on the fourth round with all heroes above 14.
Best possible opening would be Prison Break and the Fence, IMO, but that would be a close second!
Edit: Excellent work keeping him down! We had a similar situation with Hypersonic Assault and the Scholar's transmutation card that prevents a target from doing damage. Our first card was Prison Break and the first underboss was the Broker. The Informant pulled out Undivided Attention. We took care of them handily and then faced the Muscle, then the Fence, then the Contract. We were lucky on our card draws as well, since they were all Undivided Attention or Rook City is Mine!.
Round one lineup: Legacy, Wraith, Omnitron-X, Absolute Zero, Bunker
My team had a rough first event. The Ennead steamrolled us, especially after the Pillars of Hercules came out, and the first player decided not to get rid of it.... Nothing like having all of the villains acting on hero turns.
After our redo, we did a lot better, although I overextended Absolute Zero on a Thermal Shockwave, and got him taken out by a Kraken and a blast of infernal damage from one of the villain cards.
Lineup for round 2: Legacy, Wraith, Omnitron-X, Setback, and Bunker.
Hopefully, the fight vs. Kismet will go better...