The Losers Game

Other Games SotM Game Engine
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I was kind of going with villians you hadn't done yet, as well as whatever catches my eye. Hadn't played Citizen Dawn in a while...

We've never had huge amounts of trouble with Dawn. She's tougher than Voss, because of Devastating Aurora and the interaction between her Citizens that Voss' minions don't have. Granted, in her first turn in uber/flip mode, she drew two Citizens, and we just let them sit and she flipped back next turn. So her invulnerability didn't last long.

She probably would have been tougher without River of Fire helping AZ. That, and Citizen Winter: once the other three heroes went down, we just left Winter in play since he was a healing machine for AZ. And once Dawn's HP dropped below AZ, the T-Rex kept chewing on her, while the Raptors went after her minions.

Checking the new stat sheet from Lynxfox, we'll probably play Omnitron, Ennead, and Voss next, since we haven't registered any games against them.

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After Fixer gets his DR and redirect out, remember whenever you get multi-target attacks (Grenade Launcher, Expat's gun that hits 3 for 2, AZ's "hit 3 for cold damage," etc.) to point one at Fixer if you want to hit the same target twice.

With this group, Iron Legacy would come entirely down to card draw, since there's both raw damage and ongoing destruction available. If you don't draw solid damage or ongoings, you're going down quickly. (With most other villains, if you get poor card draw, you have a chance at stalling until you get the right cards, but there's no stalling Iron Legacy without ongoing destruction :-p)

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Game 3 - Absolute Zero, Mr. Fixer, Expatriette, Bunker vs. Grand Marshal Voss at Rook City

Statistical Results: Hero loss after 6 turns, 19 minutes.

MVP - Mr. Fixer, Jack Handle + any damage type/+1 damage style. When Bunker went down, his Incap. power let Fixer play a Grease Gun he had drawn at the end of his turn to keep the game going a turn later, but that was about it.

Fun: 2/5

Danger: 4/5

Shining Moment: None, really. Mr. Fixer got his style/tool out early and took out Minions as quickly as they came out. That was about it.

AZ never got out a Module (and only the Fire one) until Turn 5. Expatriette no gun until Turn 4. She did get Speed Load out, so she was using Sub Machine with Hollow Points and did some hurting until Turn 6. Bunker got out a Grenade Launcher, played a Foam Grenade one turn, and was the first one to go down on Turn 4. He didn't get out an Ammo Dump or Recharge Mode, either one of which would have put him in the running. Fixer was droppng minions left and right, which would have given Bunker the cards he needed off of an Ammo Dump.

Two Toxic Sludges pretty much took out the group, along with lots of "2 damage to everyone" minions. The TSs certainly hurt, but the bad draws and lack of search would have probably doomed the team in any case.

Will probably try again with a different environment. Even with Rook City, this seemed like this could have been a win if AZ had gotten set up and Expat had a gun during her first turn or two. Fixer was basically carrying water for all three teammates. :(

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Game 4 - Mr. Fixer,Absolute Zero, Expatriette, Bunker vs. Grand Marshal Voss at Pike Industrial

Statistical Results: Hero win after 13 turns, 36 minutes. Expat incapacitated around turn 9.

MVP - Mr. Fixer, who pretty much hit all of his combos. He got Jack Handle on the first turn, went for one of the extra damage style early on, but switched to Driving Mantis when Voss flipped. Since Fixer was low HP, he kept redirecting the flipped Voss' 2 damage. Lab Rats never did more than two damage, so Fixer was pretty much immune to harm for the rest of the game. Played several Tool Boxes, got Harmony out, pretty much ruled.

Close second to AZ, whose Sub-Zero Whatever kept the Minions from doing anything. Ever. And really to Expat, since when she was Incapacitated, she'd give her +1 Projectile power to Fixer to kick up to a 2 damage (he had Harmony running) and knock things out.

Fun: 4/5

Danger: 3/5

Shining Moment: None really. Minions kept coming out, Fixer kept mowing them down.

Like I thought, this team is pretty well-suited to taking on Voss. AZ's Sub-Zero pretty much negates Forced Deployment. The Jack Handle lets Fixer take them out as quick as they come. The Vat that changes all damage to Toxic kept AZ from operating at full effectiveness, but it didn't come until late in the game. AZ's healing and high HPs basically cancelled out flipped-Voss' high-HP attack, and Fixer's Driving Mantis cancelled/redirected out the low-HP attack.

An early draw of both the Lieutenant and the Minion that prevent damage slowed things. That's when Fixer went for the extra damage style and took them out. Then he switched to Driving Mantis. The -1 damage vat came out later which also slowed things down, but not enough, and the +1 damage/Toxic vat cancelled it out two turns later anyway.

Expat is still the weak spot here with Flak Jacket as a poor man's damage prevention. It's conditional and one-shot. Fixer can redirect, AZ can heal, Bunker can armor plate and Recharge Mode and use his healing device. There's no "heal other" powers in the Losers Team, so she just keeps getting nailed by all the "least HP target" stuff. Including Lab Rats. She did well while she was up, thanks to an early Assault Rifle draw and some incendiary rounds. Her 1 projectile damage Incap power kept going to Fixer, he'd keep boosting it, things would keep dropping.

Anyhoo, AZ's Cold Snap, Impale, and Forced Apertures kept whittling Voss down, after Fixer cleared the field first in turn order. Plus Fixer Jack-Handling/Harmonying Voss along the way. I think we had three vat explosions, and while they hurt the heroes, they hurt Voss as well. That left it to Bunker to do the traditional Omni-Cannon coup de grace. Along with Turret Mode, Flak Cannon, and a discarded power cell for a Grenade Launcher.

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Sub-Zero Atmosphere doesn't negate Forced Deployment. All that happens is that they deal their damage at the start of the Villain turn instead of the end, and if Absolute Zero goes down then you're really in trouble.

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Gislef -

Great posts. I assume you meant that Sub-zero atmosphere slowed the the minions long enough for Mr. Fixer to flatten them.  I hope to get to my rematch soon.  It's been a bad week for free time.

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It doesn't directly negate, but as I described in the article, it essentially negates it by delaying the minion attacks for one turn. Mr. Fixer makes toast out of them. I never saw a minion do damage again once SZA came out, and it wouldn't have happened without SZA. I consider that "negate" for all practical purposes. :slight_smile:

And AZ is usually the last person to go down on the Loser's team. So if he goes down, you're in trouble because the game is over. :slight_smile:

I didn't get Ammo Dump out the second game, either. :slight_smile: A multi-attacking extra-damage Fixer + Ammo Dump for Bunker is a pretty unbeatable combo. SZA on top of that was heh icing on the cake. With Ammo Dump, at that point Forced Deployment becomes a liability for Voss. SZA makes sure they never do any damage, Fixer knocks them down, and Bunker draws tons of cards for Omni-Cannon and Gatling Gun. Then Forced Deployment just lets Fixer take them out again so Bunker can draw a second time for all them off of Ammo Dump.

As I noted in another thread, Voss is too predictable for his own good. Three HP for each minion, more often than not that's exactly what you're dealing with and can plan accordingly with Fixer. Unless the damage reduction lt. and minion come out, you know exactly what it takes to takes them out.

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Well, in general, that's correct, but not when Minions come back because of Forced Deployment, since Forced Deployment pops at the start of the Villain turn.

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I was thinking that - Forced Deployment acts at the start of the turn, bringing Minions back. Sub-Zero Atmosphere makes all villain end-of-turn things act at the start. If Forced Deployment has just gone off, it's still the start of the turn, so all the Minions then get to act immediately. Sub-Zero Atmosphere only negates the damage dealt by any Minions who come out during the play phase, since they have to wait a whole round before they can do anything. So unless you can destroy Forced Deployment early and take out the resultant Minions before Voss's go, you're gonna be getting hit ;).

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Even better is if AZ dies due to the damage from a Sub-Zero Atmosphere'd minion, SZA gets discarded and all the minions revert to end of turn triggers and can attack you again in the same turn!

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Then we may certainly have been playing it wrong, although I'll need to go over the cardt ext.

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Game 5 - Mr. Fixer, Expatriette, Bunker, Absolute Zero vs. Plague Rat at Pike Industrial

Statistical Results: Hero win after 13 turns, 26 minutes. everyone except Bunker down turn 8

MVP - Bunker.

Bunker got Recharge Mode and Ammo Dump on first turn. Played Ammo Dump, Recharge on the 2nd, built up. Of course, against Plague Rat, Ammo Dump didn't do much. :( He got out his Maintenance Unit and Plating, while everyone else went slowly but inevitably down. Everyone was infected by turn 7. Fixer got some mileaeg out of Driving Mantis, but he eventually went down. Irradiated Vat meant that AZ had his Null Point fairly early but couldn't use it. Expat had some decent weaponry out, but the usual problems with dealing with damage took her down.

After that, everyone Incap's power worked well. Bunker built up OmniCannon and used his power each turn to heal w/Maintenance Unit. Expat and AZ also let him use MU to heal, so he was getting back 6 a turn, keeping up with Infection and Plague Rat's irreducible. The plating protected him from the rest. Fixer either removed Ongoings or gave Bunker card draw. Fixer and Expat had knocked Plague Rat down to the 30s, and Bunker eventually fired a 31-point Omnicannon, a 4 flak cannon, healed himself again, and then AZ gave Bunker a power-use to fire the Flak Cannon again and take Plague Rat down.

Fun: 4/5

Danger: 4/5

Shining Moment: Bunker taking the game as above.

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Game 6 –Fanatic, Mr. Fixer, Bunker and Absolute Zero Vs. Akash'Bhuta in the Final Wasteland

Statistical Results - Heroes win comfortably. 

MVP – Fanatic, with a few 7-point turns when they were just needed, and then a well-timed “End of Days”.   Mr. Fixer gets the runner up for jack handling many limbs to weak enough so they could be picked off easily.

Fun - 4/5

Danger - 3/5

Shining Moment – “I’ll take End of Days for 70 HP, Alex”

This was probably the most fun I’ve ever had with Akash’Bhuta.  While there were many moments where I felt that things could have gone very bad, the heroes had just enough ongoing destruction to remove the entombs before they could do their 16 points of damage. (4 heroes, 4 points each).  The Final Wasteland was quite friendly to AB, being so target rich.  Ugh.  Sounds like a bad line from “Top Gun”. 

A card that brought out many limbs could have been much worse than it was.  It caused a good amount of damage for a turn, but Fanatic was sitting on an “End of Days”.  While I know that the ~70 hp limb buster not that uncommon in a Fanatic/AB fight, it was lovely to see.  Absolute Zero was a beast of a tank, healing from turn 2 and recovering fairly quickly from the Fanatic board clearer. He only did one significant attack the whole game, but it did a combined 25 points of damage.  I’m double dipping some of the damage, by counting the limb damage to AK in this total.  It was only a 13 point hit points from |0|, taking 6 in the process.  Mr. Fixer had a great game, having the Jack Handle and Grease Monkey fist to do 2 points of damage to everything from turn 3. Some ongoing destruction kept him from doing it every turn, but it was very consistent.  As I type this, I realize that everyone had a pretty nice game. Bunker had a Flak Cannon out early, which was a nice, solid 3 points.  The Omni-cannon did it’s job blowing up limbs when needed.  Thankfully, only 4 to 6 points of damage were necessary to remove a limb. 

I had a very interesting situation where the Mongolian Sandworm was the last card in the environment’s deck.  I drew it and then, at the start of the turn, it did its thing a return to the empty draw deck.  Worked until a target came from AB’s deck.  With another villain, the Mongolian Sandworm would have stuck around potentially for a long, long time.

The next game will be against Gloomy.

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Ammo Drop can be pretty good against Plague Rat, given the number of Ongoing cards he has.

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The only villain can think of where Ammo Drop is completely useless is against the Enead since they have no ongoings or targets.

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Except the Losers team doesn't have a lot of ongoing removal, until Fixer drops. :slight_smile:

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Absolute Zero can drop 3 at a go, and Expatriette is moderately well supplied with RPG Launchers.

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Don't forget Fanatic has Consecrated Ground. There is plenty of ongoing destruction!

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We're not using Fanatic in the Loser test runs we're playing.

No RPG Launchers in the Plague Rat game, and if Expat had drawn them, it would have probably been used on the Vat environments. I think AZ managed to drop 2 in one play and that was it before he dropped.

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So i'm miss reading Game 6 then in this very same page?