Stalemate

Other Games SotM Game Engine
1

Wanted to post a short report of a solitaire game that I played that ended in a stalemate (I would have eventually won, I think, but I was unwilling to put in the hours of gameplay to see the end).

 

GAME: FORCES OF NATURE

 

VILLAIN: Akash'bhuta

ENVIRONMENT: The Final Wasteland

HEROES: The Argent Adept, The Naturalist

 

First and foremost, I ruled (to myself, which left little debate) that any damage that was H-2+ had a minimum damage of 1.  I felt that things dealing 0 damage without any damage reduction was a little broken in my favor.

 

The game went along normally, with the heroes destroying Akash's limbs and with the Adept taking loads of damage when the Naturalist wasn't able to tank (due to being in crocodile form, mainly).  Eventually, Adept goes down.  At this point the Naturalist is at full HP, so I'm not terribly worried.  With the extra power use from the dead Adept, I am tearing through limbs (and the environment cards are helping, because the limbs have the lowest health and nothing meaningful is getting through Resilient Hide) at a steady pace, and  seem to have the game well in hand.  Then Ensaring Brambles (I may have this card name slightly wrong, as I have packed up the game already and am unwilling to fact check right now) comes out.  Suddenly, the Naturalist cannot deal damage.  OK, I think, I can just turtle up in rhino form and ride it out until the environment takes out the Brambles, and then I can go croc and win.  This....never came to fruition.  About 60-90 minutes later, Akash had all 12 limbs out, I was at full health, and I was dealing about 10 damage per hour to Akash from incidental enviro-kills.  I called it when Akash healed all of her limbs up (again), destroyed all of the environment cards (again), and stretched the game out even farther (again).

 

The moral of this tale: When it's nature vs. nature.....nothing really gets accomplished.

 

In my previous game (same heroes/enviro, against Vengeance Baron and Ermine) the environment performed a board sweep, killing the last villain AND the last hero (in that order, so technically a hero win, but I'm declaring that an environment win).  Nature won that fight HARD.  Fear the wild...

 

-DubTak

2

Yeah, that's another reason I'm not interested in trying 2-hero games (and why the game isn't really balanced well for them): The environment becomes a much larger influence than it really should be.

Just my feelings, though - if folks want to home-rule 2-hero games, that's their business. ![](upload://ka7R8OGETnk0jL0K8DcghjoOdoJ.gif)

Akash'Buta in The Final Wasteland is a pretty tough game with any combination, though!

3

Mind you, the Naturalist in Gazelle Form with Environmental Allies and Resilient Hide out in the Final Wasteland versus Akash'Bhuta when H=2 is probably not too bad. I mean, you can completely ignore the environment as there are no non-target damage sources present so you're immune to All of the Things (love that set-up :D). If any of Akash'Bhuta's damage gets through Resilient Hide you can just heal it back with either Gazelle's power or erm…there's either a one-shot or another power which lets you heal as well. And Natural-Born Vigour, if you choose to nuke that at the start of your turn (otherwise you get a free extra power use every turn instead). Damage would probably have to be dealt only through one-shots, in which case I can certainly see why that would be a problem when she plays Rejuvenating Entropy (which at least won't break any of your equipment, given that you don't have any).

Had a super-long game versus Spite a couple of weeks ago, in which the other two heroes present were Knyfe and the Sentinels - both of those (well, technically all five of those) went down in the same turn due to Spite's AE stuff, at which point he was still on around 50-60hp or something (but had flipped, I think). Then it was a matter of tanking away in Rhino Form and trying not to die (environment was Insula Primalis so I was occasionally getting burnt by lava and stuff, and the T-Rexes were targetting me too, but at least the Raptors couldn't hurt me). I dropped as low as about 4hp at one point but managed to claw back my hp to be around 25 or maybe 27, by which point Spite was erm…in his 30s I think. Then I decided "Sod it", switched to Croc Form, and just nommed the hell out of him while he whittled me down. And in Round 28, I finally won :D.

4

Natural Form's Power.  Healing while you're a rhino.  enormous grin

5

Not to forget that Resilient Hide gives rhino form a passive (if slow) heal. I was always able to stay at full or just below full health, but thanks to Ensnaring Brambles couldn’t do any direct damage.

That said, The Naturalist can solo tank a villain while healing himself and periodically doing damage (assuming that his damage dealing isn’t shut down). He is gloriously over-powered and I love it. Shapeshifting FTW.

-DubTak

6

Yes, but both of those require you to be in Rhino Form, otherwise I'd've mentioned Resilient Hide's healing. Neither would therefore be available in my described scenario of being immune to damage dealt by environment targets through being in Gazelle Form with Environmental Allies in play ;).

7

Environmental Allies is the card in Natch's deck which annoys me, the way Enduring Intercession does for Haka or Brain Burn for Visionary (except in specific matchups).  If you're not able and willing to stay a Gazelle forever, not only does Environmental Allies not help you, but it may actually cause problems for your team.  Pretty definitely my least favorite card in his otherwise excellent deck; it'll nearly always be my first choice for pitching to Shifter's Strength.

(debates going and writing a strat guide for the Naturalist despite having played him only once)

8

Volcano's should change your mind on this very quickly. Gazelle has so much great suportt and Enviro Allies is incredible in all of the harder environments like Atlantis and Rook City. How you place it in the same catagory as the overally useless Enduring Intercession is beyond me. Please don't write that strat and devalue such an amazing card.

9

I've won a match because of intercession.  Mostly it isn't good, but every once in a while.

10

The Volcano is not a target, thus damage will still be dealt to hero targets, with Environmental Allies in play.

Rook City is an interesting place to mention that Environmental Allies, as it only stops Ambitious Racketeer's damage, which isn't usually a big game changer.

11

Is it just targets? Damn I'm sorry

12

I don't have the game in front of me, but from a search, this looks to be the text for Enduring Intercession: > "Any damage that would be dealt to a Hero target by an environment card is redirected to Haka." So it should still apply to things like Volcano, if that text is right.  Can someone with the cards in front of them confirm?

13

That is correct. Haka can take other heroes Volcano damage. But Naturalist cannot make heroes immune to volcano damage.

14

The current printing has the text leaned up but it's essentially the same thing.

> Redirect any damage that would be dealt to a hero target by an Environment card to Haka.

Ninja-ed. Damnit Ronway!

Ahha!

Ronway is wrong, it is must take the damage not can take the damage, this makes it all worthwhile!

15

Whoops, read the back and forth too quickly, sorry about that.

16

I was still right, as I wasn't actually refering to "can" in the sense of it's effect in play as optional, but more that he has the ability to redirect damage from the evironment.

17

Environmental Allies is one of my favourite cards in the Naturalist's deck - it means you can completely ignore stuff like the Mongolian Death Worm or an exploding Explosive Wagon. Not so useful in target-light decks, obviously (stuff such as Pike and Rook City), or against things like Hostage Situations, but in target-heavy decks the Naturalist works really well. Then again, that's clearly what he's built for, considering cards such as Blend into the Pack (first time he gets hit each turn, he soaks damage equal to the number of environment targets in play). While you can't tank so well in Gazelle Form, its power lets you heal 3hp which ain't too shabby. And Resilient Hide is worth putting out no matter which form you're in - it's very good against all Rat's plinks of one point of damage too - irreducible or not, it ain't getting through :D.

18

Giving damage reduction to Tony Taurus and Dr. Tremata can be useful if you have someone who can heal Environment targets, or in a 3 player game.

19

Ah yeah, forgot about the soak aspect of it - good in somewhere like the Final Wasteland then (I seem to keep mentioning that ;)). Unforgiving Wasteland comes out but all heroes are immune to damage from the environment critters and thus can ignore them while they chomp away at hopefully as many villain targets as possible, hopefully thus removing at least a few of them from the game…meanwhile the villains can't do much to stop it unless they happen to target the environment and can get through the soak…and I recall that Environment Allies is not Limited and that there are two copies of it. If any creatures have innate soak anyway, they ain't gonna be going anywhere any time soon…plus if the Naturalist gets out Blend into the Pack they all give him a nice one-shot of soak every turn as well :).

20

Wasteland and Naturalist is epic.  Which is kind of cool, he finds his way into an apocolyptic fauna of doom world, turns into a Gazelle and frolics happily with his new friends, while they devour his enemies.