The Losers Game

Other Games SotM Game Engine
21

Thanks all.  I have enjoyed playing |0| - Elemental Wraith a few times, but for this project, I'm sticking to the original unimproved version.  It is part of the challenge.   I expect to lose more often than the math would have me – mostly from mistakes playing solo.

Have I missed an announcement that there would be no official Mr. Fixers or ExPats?  I was really hoping for the Mr. Fixer of old, before his students were killed. The “Impetuous Mr. Fixer”, who has the alternate power suggested on one of his threads of discarding a card for an extra point of damage, seemed like a nice fix.

Oh well, I digress.

In the case of the game vs. Kismet with Bunker, I had ammo drop very early, but it didn’t seem to matter much at all.  Kismet wasn’t losing cards enough to make ammo drop’s activation significant.

Game 4 –Mr. Fixer, Ex-Pat, Fanatic, and Absolute Zero Vs. Kismet in the Time Cataclysm (Changes from Game 3 in Bold)

Statistical Results - Heroes win, no incapacitations.  HPs were between 9 and 2 at end of game.

MVP – Absolute Zero with his damage absorption, turning glass jaw into a huge helper card.

Fun - 4/5

Danger 3/5

Shining Moment – Blowing up the Cyro Chamber, bringing |0| to 2 hit points, and taking out Kismet

During lunch today I ran the fight again, this time using Fanatic instead of Bunker.  Between slightly different draws for the other three heroes, far fewer jinxes coming out, and this change, the game became much easier.  Mr. Fixer started the game with a Driving Mantis in hand, which was played instantly and held through most of the game. Ex. Patriot had her shotgun from turn 2. Absolute Zero was healing 4 points a turn (A glass jaw, Cyro Chamber, Focused Aperture, plus his two modules) to keep the rest of the party safe from damage.  |0| had an impale running which by the end of the game was doing 4 points a turn (Cyro + FA). Fanatic and Ex. Pat were doing a consistent 2 and 4 points a turn, plus whatever extra few points from one-shots.  Mr. Fixer was his point of damage, but redirecting one or two of Kismet’s.  I tend to count redirected damage double, so he was keeping up with my “heavy hitters” just fine.

Absolute Zero ended the game by blowing up the chamber to take him to two hit points.

In retrospect, the biggest difference was the lack of Jinx cards. In the previous game, Kismet drew the one-shot that pulled H+1 cards and extracted all the jinxes from them.  Twice.

22

I believe that Cryo only increase the cold damage that AZ takes, it doed not buff his attacks against anyone else. I don't mean to be picky, because I think what you are doing is very interesting, but I know a lot of the people in my group make the same mistake.  What would be interesting is if you could impale yourself to get a constant source of healing going.  Though that probably wouldn't be as useful as the damage.

23

Unimproved? I'm starting to think I am the only one who prefers base Absolute Zero. Guess it is my self destructive playstyle that makes me enjoy it so much.

24

You are not the only one.

25

I'm also a big fan of regular Absolute Zero, and much more so than of his Wrathful alter ego. 

26

oh - by all means be picky.  I'd rather lose getting all the bits right than win missing inconvenient bits. I'll check the card tonight if I can and let you know. That said, as you brought it up as a previously researched point I find it more likely I played it wrong.

Playing the game solo, as I have for all the games listed thus far, I find it very easy to make mistakes such as these.  My only is the about balance out.

Ronway – I find AZEM is a much easier character to play.  While I often enjoy deeply layered characters such as |0|, Argent Adept, or Nightmist, there’s sometimes something to be said for just being able to run a character without being wholly awake. I probably should have mentioned that I ran game 3 on about 4 hours of sleep at 4:00 a.m., while cursing insomnia. 

I’m more used to |0|^1, but I’ll only hand him to people who say they want a challenging character. So far, the only two people who’s played my copy of AZ are (1) a PhD ABD Student, and (2) a PhD.  I may have oversold the complexity of Absolute Zero.

I hope to have game 5 vs. Akash’Bhuta tonight.

27

I prefer the regular Absolute Zero myself, though I can see where people would prefer the promo version.  I like playing AZ as a tank early/mid game (and except for REALLY bad luck, it should be pretty easy to get setup) so I usually take the standard AZ, but if I know we have a team with lower damage output I'll occasionally take the Elemental Wrath one.

28

Playing original AZ is what made me fall in love with the game in the first place.

29

Gotta agree that I also prefer Original AZ.

Even when the opponent is immune to damage, DR, or will rebuttle. Original AZ still has the option to heal which is quite useful for tanking. 

30

We tried a game today, ex-Pat, Bunker, Fixer, AZ (that order) vs. Gloomweaver, in Insula Primis.

We got slaughtered. Strength of the Grave came out on the first villain turn, so basically six damage to all four heroes. Ex-Pat took it out with the RPG launcher, but the damage was already done by her turn and it all went downhill from there.

The Grimoire and Drum came out on turns 2 and 4. That was enough to keep anybody from getting any real momentum. Toss in Cultists, the Following card, and a voodoo pin on Fixer.

Fixer and Ex-pat both had decent draws, but had to lose the cards to the relics. Bunker got out a first-turn Ammo Drop and a second-turn Recharge Mode, and he was doing about as well as anyone. AZ couldn't really keep up, either.

The environment didn't have a huge impact, but there were a few annoyances.

Turn 8, 27 minutes, it was all over.

In fairness, most teams might have had a problem with that series of draws.

31

We finally beat Kismet for the first time today, hooray! That's our fourth game against her in total, I think. Managed to keep the Jinxes under control with an early copy of Sarabande, but started getting whittled away at later when that bloody Lady Luck card came out and took several rounds to finally destroy (with multiple attempts of both Blinding Speed and Sarabande of Destruction before we finally drew a Lucky card and could trash Lady Luck). Everyone survived, but the Adept was on 1hp in the final turn.

32

Gislef -

This experiement has demonstrated to me that a bunch of slow characters are in trouble.  In this I'm not saying that these characters are especially bad individually, but they make for a tough team with which to win.  As a follow up, I think I'm going to try Unity, OmniX, Argent Adept and someone else well regarded but requiring a lot of build up in the same scenario. 

Also looks like a very tough draw from Gloomy.

Real life interferred with my game playing, but I hope to try our heroes against AB either tomorrow or Tuesday. I don't know how much I fear the character, but I hate how long the games often feel.

 

33

We ran a second game. This time it was Fixer - Bunker - Ab Zero - Ex-Pat. Gloomweaver again, but in the Realm of Discord. 16 turns (!!), 1:02 minutes.

We had a better darw this time. Basically the bad guy developed much slower, no relics or major cult leaders until later on. So we got the time to build up. Fixer was still pretty good off the bat: he got the cards he needed pretty earlier on. AZ didn't get any Modules, but he got Glaciers on the first and second turns, drew the three extra cards per turn, and picked up Null Point on the third. Ex-Pat did good early on. Bunker was slow and steady, got Ammo Dump down early, and kept the Gatling Gun going until the traditional Omni-Cannon 30+ damage blast to Gloomy to win the game.

Realm of Discord was pretty easygoing. We kept Time Flies going for several turns thanks to Bunker's foam. The main pain was the Distortion that makes every non-hero target but the lowest HP invulnerable to damage. It took us three turns to RPG Launcher it away, or the game would have been over three turns earlier.

None of the heroes were anywhere close to incap by the game's end. AZ was cooking (freezing) on all burners, Bunker had his plating down, and Fixer was using the style that lets him redirect damage of 2<. Ex-Pat was the lowest.

So I'd agree that slow buildup is key to Bunker, as always. Ex-Pat, it helped, since she played two Unloads with Pride, Prejudice, SMG, and Tactical Shotgun (and a Hollow Point tossed in on the last two in the first Unload). I don't think AZ is that slow a build: Glacier and the search card do well. Fixer can vary: he always seems to be either you get what you want early, or you spend the whole game waiting for it.

I'll want to try a few other games, of course: Plague Rat next? But so far the main downsides are pretty much what has been noted: no deck manipulation (well, Bunker's foam, I suppose), limited removal of ongoings and environment, fairly weak search cards.

34

 

Untiy does not take a lot of time to build up when O-X is top-decking her bots/equipment directly into play for her.  The times I've played with this pair have been cake walks.

35

Also, Argent Adept is Unity's second-best buddy, and Argent and Omnitronks both have ways of speeding up setup.

36

Oh – yuck.  A pair made in Heaven, then.  Wait.  That's moving toward the 'shipper thread elsewhere in the forum.  I hadn't thought of that combination.  I've played OmniX a small number of times, but it is one of my partners in defeating crime's favorites so not as much as I'd like.

Game 5 –Absolute Zero, Bunker, Mr. Fixer and Fanatic Vs. Akash'Bhuta in the Ruins of Atlantis

Statistical Results - Heroes lose.  AB was at 37 Hit Points at end of game

MVP – Toss up between the Entomb card or the Environment's targets

Fun - 3/5

Danger 4/5

Shining Moment – The continual feeding of the Kraken on various Primeval Limbs.

The game generally was going the heroes way until the last two rounds when things went kablewie on them. The general plan of using Bunker's grenade launcher and Mr. Fixer's jack handle to weaken limbs so that Fanatic could take them out was doing just fine. The ruins pulled two Kraken tentacles, which were left in place to destroy the limbs and give AB the feedback damage.

By the third to last round, the stats were along the lines of AB-39, Mr. Fixer 10, AZ 8, Bunker 4, and Fanatic 3.  Fanatic had just pulled Absolution and Aegis with the help of the Pillars of Hercules.  My big mistake letting those the Pillars of Hercules stand. AB's deck shuffled and I found myself facing two entombs, no limbs, and some upset tentacles.

In retrospect, I probably should have tried to play the game conservatively.  I tend to think of both |0| and Fanatic as aggressive attackers, with very little thought towards hit points. If I had used Absolute Zeroes abilities to consistently heal instead of choosing to do damage, the game would have been in a different place.

I'll probably try it again just to see.  Otherwise, I'll see how the team fares against Gloomweaver.

37

Akash'Bhuta gets insanely nasty if you let Pillars of Hercules in play for too long. It's her slow output rate that makes her fairly easy, that's why she gets increasingly more difficult in environments with lots of targets or plenty of ways to pull out targets (Final Wasteland, Silver Gulch, and The Block) giving those extra plays can make her extremely nasty. Plus those decks tend to reshuffle quite a bit because of it, so it will make it when you destroy all those targets she starts playing more cards again.

I don't think playing recklessly was the problem in your game, it was leaving those pillars in play.

38

On the other hand, if she has out loads of limbs and Fanatic has an End of Days in hand... >:)

39

Game 2 - Absolute Zero, Bunker, Mr. Fixer, Expatriette vs. Citizen Dawn at Insula Primis

Statistical Results: Hero win after 16 turns, 42 minutes. AZ was the only one standing at the end of the game.

MVP - AZ, plus River of Fire

Fun: 3/5

Danger: 4/5

Shining Moment: AZ healing off of Citizen Winter and River of Fire. He crawled up to 29 and then never really went down below 20 for more than a turn.

The heroes pretty much just went down due to decimation. Devastating Aurora had its usual unpleasant effects, costing Expat a tac shotgun, Pride, and Prejudice. She never really recovered from that.

Bunker was doing well but just wasn't able to get the healing and armor out in time. Kept losing his Ammo Drop, and never got an Omni-Cannon. Fixer did okay but lost his Style that let him redirect damage on the second turn, after he played it on the first turn. He probably would have survived except for that.

Basically AZ dominated. Once the other heroes went down, they gave very nice Incapacitated abilities to keep him going. Card draw, trash recovery, use a power, play a card, the occasional ongoing removal.

40

Gislef -- Good stuff! 

I'm working my way up from the bottom of the statistical heap of villians to make sure I don't miss one, and that's not at all how you're doing it. At my still moderate level of play, I find Dawn a challenge with a hand-picked group of favorites. I will have to see if I can maintain momentum when I get to the "A" league villains like Dawn, Iron Legacy, Voss, and The Chairman. The Bush League heroes may not have what it takes against these guys.  On the other hand, Voss' gene-bound soldiers seems tailor made for Ex-Patriot and Mr. Fixer.

"Please Jack Handle, Harmony & Grease Monkey Fist..."