The Ennead... Hard Villains or the Hardest Villains?

General GTG General Discussion
1

So, a couple of friends and I sat down to play Sentinels. All of us but one had played many times before, so things started up quickly. Our team was Argent Adept, Mr. Fixer, Unity, Expatriette, and the promo Fanatic. Since I had just gotten the Infernal Relics expansion at PAX this weekend, I was pumped to finally try fighting a new villain.

Boy, was I wrong.

We started out all right; the Ennead sort of stagger their entry and there are no minions so we got off to a good start hitting them. Unfortunately, our choice of playing the Ennead in the Tomb of Anubis environment turned fatal when our first environment turn summoned Anubis himself and started tagging us for playing cards. Turn after turn, the Ennead began nickel and diming us down and the mechanic of their cards triggering other cards triggering more damage for us soon became a problem. Fanatic went down after a well-timed sacrificial play, she saved us all from taking seven damage each but at the cost of her life!

I was playing A.A. and was really enjoying the perform/harmony combos I was starting to get with the instruments but soon I realized that I needed to be doing more damage and less support. Unity and Expatriette were both getting totally swept aside by the plethora of things destroying equipments and ongoings for us. I fell, and then it was a slow race to the finish.

In the end, we managed to kill five of the nine Ennead. After talking about it with them, we decided that this is the hardest villain we've played so far... and I've played everything that's been out until Infernal Relics.

TL;DR : The Ennead trashed us in my first game with the Infernal Relics. What has your experience been with them?? :)

2

 

 They are tough, no doubt.   But I don't think they make the "hardest villain" slot in my book.  That still belongs to Advanced Chairman, IMO.   

 

Unfortunately, AA really can not do damage in any meaningful way.  It's almost not even worth bothering to try,   but his support is great, and can be very handy when you have to recover from an equipment wipe.  Your team that you picked looks like it would have a lot of trouble with stuff destruction, because they all rely on equipment a lot.   Try with a different team, you'll get them.

 

I've done them on Toumb of Anubis a few times, and unfortunately, that seems to be a particularly nasty environment for the Ennead for some reason that I can't quite put my finger on.  Try them in a different environment too, I suggest.

 

Even though it is super tempting to go for a lot of "global" damage via thigns like Squall or Drawn to the Flame or whatever, in my experience this does not work out well.  You really need to focus your damage on one target, and not try to keep doing damage to all targets.   This is because the Ennead can heal themselves up rather quickly, so its better to get somebody down to Incapacitated where they cant get back up then to waste damage on enemies that are just going to be healed up anyways.

 

Target priorties are:  #1  Nuit.   #2 Atum, #3 Osiris.     I feel this is the only correct order to attack in.   Obviously you can make alterations depending on who shows up first,   but these 3 are the biggest annoyances by far.   They also have Incapacitated powers that are not too damaging,  unlike say,  Set.    Set's regular ability is downright frusterating and it is very tempting to destroy him as soon as possible...   but I feel this is a huge mistake.    Set IMO should be one of the LAST villains you take down.    His incap ability turns out to be WAY more benificial to the villains than it is to the heroes, and is probably even worse than just keeping him alive.

 

 

3

I'm a little surprised that Anubis wasn't hitting the Ennead, as he always targets the second-highest HP, non-environment target when a card is destroyed. (And since they are nemeses, he does extra damage against them! :sunglasses: )

We almost always play the Ennead in the Tomb, but more for thematic reasons.

It really does depend on the team. I agree with awp832 that focusing on global damage isn't the best path, but being able to do global damage does improve survival, in our experience, as they have multiple targets and global damage is a more efficient method of distributing damage.

AA being able to facilitate others, letting them play cards out of turn, etc. can make a huge difference, too, but Legacy is definitely a more global damage booster. (Of course, that's always true. :wink: )

4

Hee hee, I love incapacitating Set early. I don't know that it's the "Correct" choice, but I like to add a dash of chaos to my gameplay...

5

A constant Atlantian Font of Power, FTW!

6

MSBQ, I'm curious, were you playing advanced?

Overall, I think advanced Ennead are perhaps the third most difficult villain, behind the two usual suspects.  They can have setups and card orders that make them even worse, though!

I find that I win the games where I kill Set quickly.  Osiris, on the other hand, is annoying, but I don't prioritize killing him.  Especially if Unity is in the game - his incapacitated power destroys her.  Regardless, Nuit and Atum are the other high priority targets.  Tefnut is, I think, the last kill.

7

Personally, I've never found The Ennead to be all that difficult (I've only played twice, won both times, one time was barely, but still seemed easier than Voss or Dawn, and never played advanced). Though, I can see them being fairly difficult if you are not prepared for them (but that's mostly true of most villains).

8

I forgot to mention that yeah, we thoroughly enjoy knocking out Set as early as possible. :sunglasses:  Nuit's always highest priority, though - definitely agree with that - and Atum's right up there, also, although somehow I've been lucky enough not to get him out very often.  

9

Just a few notes:

 

Unity is very hard to play against both the Ennead and Tomb of Anubis.  The Tomb has a lot of "damage all targets" effects, and even 1 mummy that smack of lowest hp.  The Ennead is FULL of "damage all targets" effects, and a fair number of "damage lowest hp" target effects as well.

 

While it's true that AA does very little damage himself, if you can get Inspiring Supertonic out, he can let Expatriette fire again each round, and 2 Assault Rifles or Tac Shotguns each round can really speed things up.

10

Sounds awesome, can't wait.

11

While it's true that Unity can be bad in the case that Anubis and Ennead tend to try to kill off her bots (especially The Grave Beckons, or whatever that card is called), with the correct card out, it can be helpful (something to the effect that every time a Mechanical Golem is destroyed, Unity deals damage).

12

UGH, you are all talking about cards I don't know about! I wish you would just post card lists or something, or at least give a basic description of the cards you are talking about, so those of us who haven't seen it yet can at least understand the discussion.

13

Unity pretty much should not fight the Ennead,  I'm sorry, that's just the way it is.   I feel this is more than fair because she is rediculously good against just about anybody else.    But it's not just Osiris' incap ability that hurts her,   it's a large amount of global damage, and Death's Grasp on top of that.  If you always do random draws or whatever, you have to try to make it work and maybe that might involve lowering Osiris' target priority, but if you are choosing your heroes with any sort of intelligence,   you really should not pick Unity against the Ennead.   It's asking for trouble,   kind of like playing Zero against Cosmic Powered Omnitron, on Mars.

 

There are several good reasons to nail Osiris.   Firstly,  aside from Unity (and Decoy Projection)   his incapacitated ability is extremely helpful to heroes.   Typically, this gets rid of environment cards for you.   Osiris apparently really does not like Anubis, and pwns him on a regular basis.   He's also very good to take out krakens, t-rexes, mutant rats, mystical defenses, and... uh... bubbles.    Any environment target with HP,  Osiris can deal with for you, which is a huge boon.

 

Secondly,   after you've dealt with Atum, if you take out Osiris,   you almost get a free pass on Ankh cards.   Yeah,  Isis deals somebody 2 infernal damage,   but not if a Hand card was played that turn, and all villains heal for 1 hp,  no big.  It's almost as good as drawing a Sunshine in Pandemic.    This means that about 1/3 of the time, an Ankh card is on top, and the Ennead doesn't really do much.

 

Thirdly,   nobody likes discarding cards, and the dealing-yourself-damage thing can be super annoying.   Especially if you have say, Legacy on your team, or Fixer, or Ra, or just about anybody else who likes to lay on the damage buffing.

 

As for Set... if you do it for lolz that is one thing, but I'm telling you guys..  it's much better to let him live and have him maybe play an extra card on the villain turn than to garuntee he always plays an extra card on the villain turn,   even if heroes get a play too.    The thing is that the villain deck is always random, so an extra play for the villain deck is basically an extra turn for the villains.   Whereas Heroes rely on their plays being not random to win,   rarely are the cards played the optimum cards,   sometimes they can be downright harmful to your cause (End of Days, I watched Haka turn a victory into defeat once by killing off a critical hero with Rampage who otherwise would have lived,   Combat Stance can be downright annoying if you left Osiris alive).   Many times they are limited cards already in play, or cards that are not especially useful.  

 

Even if we be super-generous and assume that the card played is always incredibly useful,   you are STILL trading effectively a full villain and environment turn for only HALF a hero turn, as you are not getting a power phase/draw phase to compensate.  

 

 

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[This comment has been ignored by everyone]

15

Oh, right, I knew there was something else when I mentioned Unity vs. The Ennead.  Didn't have the cards in front of me, but yeah, Death's Grasp and Osiris also make her really suck against them too.

16

Re: Osiris over Set, I guess I'll look into it.  I'll try it your way and see if I have any more success.  Generally speaking, though, if I lose, I pretty much know before I kill Nuit. 

My last victory against them was a pretty resounding one.  It could have been a nightmare scenario for Unity: the Ennead, Nightmist, and Haka were all intent on killing her bots.  Despite that, the bots still managed to easily rip through the last several targets.  Ra was understandably the weakest remaining hero, but powered Flesh of the Sun God through the last several turns to great effect.  Haka ended at 21 hit points, and could have easily gone several more rounds.

17

 

[sigh… I know.]

18

McBehrer, if I had a decent scanner I would show you what I was talking about... Sorry! :P

And no, we weren't even playing the advanced Ennead. I'm scared to try them again.

19

Awp832, you are right that played that way Unity is bad. In most games you want to keep Set alive, but if you are playing with Unity you want to destroy him quickly. She gets better with Set's help.

If Set flips a golem it goes into play. This gets even better if you stack your deck with Robot Reclamation. Many of her cards are best at the start of her turn. And she has no limited cards so no problems there. About half of the global damage is 1 damage so Stealth Bot deals with that nicely.

You do need Volatile parts on the board. You also don't kill Osiris. You are right you have to watch out for the cards you mentioned (End of Days, Rampage, etc.) I guess if you are also using Haka and Fanatic you have to play it your way. Otherwise if you want to do well with Unity you do want to kill Set.