First let me say that I'm in love with this game. Played a friend's version of the game, but then it only got worse when someone got it for me for Christmas. Nevertheless....
What's the strategy most of you use against Spite? I played a game against Spite, the non-advanced version, the other day and he killed us within a few turns. It feels like he is pretty untouchable. If you focus him he'll just heal it all right back up, if you focus victims it seems just about when you've gotten rid of them all he'll bring all of them back, and really you can't do much against his drugs.
Also while we are talking strategies, a ton of the people I play with say that Bunker is a super slow hero to play. Saying stuff like "By the time I was fully set-up the villain was dead." I haven't personally played him, so I really can't vouch for of this. But what do y'all think, do you agree, do you know of any ways to fix this?
Deck control is your friend. Being able to control Spite's plays is huge; if you can stop him from playing Forced Entry then any victims you saved are completely safe, and the sooner you get his drugs into play the sooner you can start piling on damage. Beyond that, accelerated card plays are slightly more useful than normal, since fodder for PL531 is very useful. (On a related note, PL531 can make certain one-round cards last turn after turn; Omnitron-X can bounce and play Slip Through Time turn after turn; Bloody Knuckles or Hunter and Hunted can be returned to hand to negate some of the self-harm potential; damage prevention cards like Heroic Interception, Grease Gun, Expect the Worst, etc. can block damage many times, especially if PL531 comes out later than most of Spite's other drugs.)
As for Bunker, I am not particularly great at Bunker, but I can point you towards Pydro's 8000-word opus on playing him: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_BC9zCpZ0dA2lwMY3yoaOJWR5n2KhNd79y82TeI7mYQ/edit
Spite is many people's (including mine) least favorite villain to play against, not because he's super hard, but because you have to get fairly "gamey" with him. Essentially, you are just trying to get your stuff out ahead of his card bouncing and accelerate his flip, and just pound on him on his flip side. This also include ignoring most victims, which feels wrong thematically. This a very simplified version and there are certainly other ways to beat him, but that is the most consistent.
The key with Bunker (and most heroes) is not try to go for an optimal setup, but recognizing he has a lot of cards that can do damage in different ways but often will need cards to fuel them. Taking advantage of powers like Aux Power Source and Initialize and cards like Ammo Drop is certainly one way to go. There are a couple of really good guides about Bunker and his damage output potential on the forum, check the Strategy forum
I tend to find the Wraith pretty useful against Spite - Utility Belt and two Stun Bolts basically nerfs him completely (at least when H=3) and if you can get Smoke Bombs out and have the lowest hp then even the Nemesis bonus isn't a problem. Even if you can only nerf his damage output a bit (or get everyone to soak some of it) it helps on his front side, since he only heals as much hp as heroes lose when he attacks them. We have killed him on his front side a few times but it can be tricky. At least once he flips you know what he's gonna do every turn for the rest of the game. As Meerkat has mentioned, the drug that returns cards to players' hands can be very useful - we once let Legacy be the one to return a card to his hand because he had Inspiring Presence out. He then just kept replaying it so we kept getting 1hp back every time it was his turn, which was nice :). But stuff like Bloody Knuckles is good too - take advantage of the damage boost but then return it to your hand before Spite has a chance to hit you for increased damage :). For me, I find the most annoying drug is the "take damage and discard your top five whenever you use a power", though if Spite's been nerfed enough then even this isn't too much of a problem.
As for Bunker, I don't really play him very often but my partner uses him sometimes. He tends to do the "Turret Mode and at least one gun" set-up quite often. I can recall playing him as a tank with the Heavy Plating and Recharge Mode whilst charging up the Omnicannon (with the extra draws from Recharge Mode). But as has been mentioned, it's probably best to just look at what you've got and see how to achieve the best outcome you can with that, rather than spending the whole game waiting on a card (or card combo) which ends up not appearing. Mind you, that's probably true of any hero.
Bunker, like most other heroes, needs to be "played from the hand, not from the ideal", as has already been said. The problem for Bunker in particular is that his deck looks like it should be played Recharge Mode for a few turns, then Upgrade Mode for a few turns, and then Turret Mode for the rest of the game. Which is, in fact, super slow, especially because you're never going to draw the cards in the correct order and ongoing and equiptment destruction can set you way back. It doesn't help that his base power, which draws him a card, will almost certainly be displaced as your default power almost immediately by Flack Cannon or Grenade Launcher. So a full setup is going to be difficult to achieve. But you don't need the "full setup" for Bunker to be extremely effective as a damage dealer or a tank.
I like Mr. Fixer vs. Spite. (Okay I like him against anyone)
Redirecting his little shots of damage back to him is great fun.
Mostly I just focus him down, and when he gets to the point where he could finish his drug collection we try to get the victims under the safehouse and go to town on him.
Yeah, we just play against him, no special strategy, saving victims and punching him whenever it feels right. Sometimes we win, sometimes we don't. We think that's fun.
We were working on a variant where at the end of the Villain turn you removed victims under the safehouse from play, which made it much more victim saving oriented. I should work some more on that. It greatly lessened the impact of forced entry, as only victims saved that round would be under the safehouse, which made him a bit too easy.
Thanks for all the responses guys, we're going to have to give Spite a try again.
But this has been the problem, or at least I feel like it is:
We had a game with a fairly new player and he got the exact cards to this, in the exact order needed. Only problem was he dropped Omnicannon 3 turns before the game ended. He ended up getting the last shot on the villian, but still, it was the only damage he had done all game.
When I play bunker I mostly ignore the modes unless the damage reduction on recharge mode is needed like against the Matriarch. Or I use a home rule to make the modes less penalizing to play. Add a at the start of your turn you can put it back in your hand if you do you may play a mode card from your hand.
With this home rule you get a better feeling of switching modes and adapt quickly like a master tactician would and not get the feeling of going in a slow crawl all the time.
You could try the versions of Bunker's Mode cards that I have on my site (http://www.spiffworld.com/sotm/printable.cfm). Like Medic-Tank's, they make the Modes less penalizing to play. I feel like they bring Bunker from too slow (as you say) to just right.
I'm afraid I can't be helpful because I can't remember the last time I played Spite. I just find him dull, to be honest, with every game feeling exactly the same - hang around trying to survive until he gets all the drugs out (trying to save a few victims if possible along the way) and then smash him unless he kills you first.
I really wish he'd had more than 5 drugs in his deck but still only needed 5 to flip. At least then you'd have games that were more variable.
Regular Spite and Miss Information are the only two villains we don't fight on G+. The Agent of Gloom promo Spite is quite interesting though, so we do play him occasionally.
Not sure about other people, but usually my way of facing Spite is just focusing on building up and saving victim, ignoring damage dealing to him until he flipped, which then the cue to unleash all hell on him. It's pretty much pointless to try to damage him pre-flip.
Btw, if you want you can try playing against promo Spite for some added variety...
We don't tend to get more than a couple of victims in the Safehouse (we never bother with the Good Samaritans, funnily enough ;)). We do often manage to get some damage to Spite before he flips and I think once or twice we've even killed him before he got all the drugs out. At least if you're fighting him somewhere horrible, as soon as Mind Phyre comes out you can go "Phew, we don't have to worry about the environment any more", other than any end-of-turn effects that newly-played cards might have. Plus if Mind Phyre is the first drug out and there's an environment card that buffs villain damage, Spite'll nuke it before it can affect any of his other drugs (like Demon's Kiss) :D.