If that is so then maybe I should back track. How would Sub-Zero delay the attack brought about by the Forced deployment card as Gimlef suggested? If the card is destroyed at the start of villain's turn, they come out and attack on the turn they came out.
Was she wrong?
Yes.
Sub-Zero Atmosphere delays normally played cards but not Forced Deployment
It's good against Voss's Minions, though, as they normally attack at the end of the turn. So he plays a Minion during his Play phase but if Sub-Zero Atmosphere is out, that Minion has to wait until the start of Voss's next turn before it can attack…and chances are it'll be dead by then. Ideally with Forced Deployment you'll want to destroy it ASAP after it comes out, so you have the rest of the turn to destroy all the resultant Minions before Voss's turn comes around again and you have all the dead Minions reappearing and subsequently attacking you. Sub-Zero Atmospheres would be of no help here since Forced Deployment destroys itself at the start of the turn, bringing all the Minions back…who then get to act at the start of the turn (ie, right now) due to Sub-Zero Atmospheres being out. If it wasn't out, they'd just have to wait till the end of the turn as normal and hammer you then :).
As was noted, I was wrong. 
Game 9 – Mr. Fixer and Absolute Zero (H=3) vs. Baron Blade in Megolopolis
Statistical Results - Heroes lose, Earth and Moon become one
MVP(s) – Hubris. Losers plus a two-player game equals extra hard
Fun - 4/5
Danger - 4/5
Shining Moment – The happiest moment for the heroes was probably AZ using the Baron’s various shield ongoings to turn into significant if insufficient damage. For the Baron, it was probably drawing 2 MDPs, one laser, and a personal shield in the first five turns.
One of my regular partners in fighting crime when I play has a thread here called “Two Heroes”. I tried, in a truly epic fit of hubris, to combine the play of our two threads. While AZ and Mr. Fixer did relatively well given a rather good start for the villain, it was simply too many hitpoints on the board for them to overcome by the time 15 cards filled the villains trash. The damage potential of AZ never completely developed, and Mr. Fixer’s damage flattened out too quickly.
I choose to believe that this was a prophetic dream, sent to someone so she could prevent this tragedy.
Game 10 – Mr. Fixer, Absolute Zero, and Fanatic (H=3) vs. Baron Blade in Megolopolis
Statistical Results - Heroes win, no incapacitations.
MVP(s) – Fanatic, with two nicely timed plays and solid consistent output.
Fun - 5/5
Danger - 5/5
Shining Moment – Fanatic had two glorious moments in the game. The Baron had by turn 5 two MDPs, elemental converter, and a laser out, making feel like a repeat of the last game. End of Days opened the playing field. When the Baron had 14 cards in the trash, Fanatic’s discard a card to do 2 points of damage did just enough to flip him on the environment’s turn.
This was Fanatic’s game, with some significant help from the environment deck. At the cost of one of Absolute Zero’s modules, some 27 points of defense and damage were destroyed by the end of days. The Baron’s trash pile was incredibly high, but Fanatic was able to hit him just enough for a flip at the beginning of the Environment’s turn. It could not be closer with the cards on the table – although having Police Backup flip the Baron would have been great.
Absolute Zero did okay in the game. His one or two points to everyone every turn, plus whatever bricking he could muster, felt reasonable.
Mr. Fixer’s game was also reasonable. He best bit was, after the other heroes had managed to bring a battalion or laser to two points, destroying cards with their own damage.
I guess the characters could be summarized as “meh, meh, *whew*”
Once he was flipped, the game progressed in a routine manner.
Next game, the Baron goes mad.
https://greaterthangames.com/forum/topic/two-heros-3781
Appologies to Mclanem, I forgot to put a link to his thread.
Looking over the hero stats, I can't help but wonder if it would look different if the hero win% was shown by how they were selected.
As we've seen in your games, a group of characters with similar weaknesses (needing cards out while having weak card destruction is a recipe for getting rolled) leaves you in a bad spot.
Bunker can be a very strong hero in the right team, one that minimizes his weaknesses (like Visionaries ongoing destruction and card draw help) and uses his strengths (Legacy + Grenade launcher is amazing).
Actually Legacy, Visionary, Bunker and Expat is a fun team, and remarkably strong. The trouble is when you get these heroes in the wrong team.
I can't believe Fixer is as low as he is, he's really tough and gets going fast, he just has a low ceiling. You can build a team around Ex-Pat to showcase her damage, and AZ is a lot of fun, but hard to manage. I don't think any of them are bad (except Engine of War Bunker, he's terrible).
Is he really that tarnished without Initialize? Ongoing destruction in a pinch can be absolutely fantastic, and it's pretty easy for him to have a couple of Mode cards in hand that won't get played. It may be one less card for a Gatling Gun or two less damage on his Omni-Cannon, but blowing up a Return with the Dawn or Strength from the Grave when everyone else is out of Ongoing destruction can be a lifesaver.
Not to mention that you can use it in Turret Mode, where Initialize becomes useless. It also depends on how often you Initialize. For me at least, most of the time Flak Cannon or Grenade Launcher are just better, so to have that utility as option really helps.
Just for a litle comparison between the 2:
Recharge Mode: No difference
Upgrade Mode: No difference
Turrent Mode: EoW can actually help out.
No Mode:
Original Bunker can play 1 card and draw 2.
EoW can play 0 cards and draw 2
If you are using a different power, then it doesn't matter. Both can play 1 and draw 1, but EoW has that added utility.
EDIT: Playing EoW can actually help you play Original Bunker better. When you have to choose between play a card (like Heavy Plating) and only drawing 1 card, or playing none and drawing 2, it really helps you see which cards a really needed and which cards aren't. Then go back and play Original bunker, and wow, you will do great.
It took me so long to realize one of Bunkers best opening hands: Upgrade Mode, Flak Cannon, Grenade Launcher, and Turret Mode.
Turn 1: Play Upgrade Mode and Flak Cannon/Grenade Launcher.
Turn 2: Flak Cannon/Grenade Launcher and Turret mode.
Now you start pounding the villain for 7 every turn, as well as hitting for another 3 and 2. There are very few heroes that can start pumping that consistent damage so early, or get setup that quickly for that amount of damage. Sure, it will be a boring game for the player, but the villain will go down. It just took awhile for me to to realize that Bunker doesn't need to be "fully" setup to be powerful. In fact, it made him less powerful, becauase I was wasting turns (and damage) playing cards that weren't really neeeded.
I have no idea why I went into this here. Oh well.
EDIT2: Just realized why I brought it up, because Intialize isn't great if you can be doing damage with FC/GL. Even if you are drawing cards for GG/OC, the other 2 do more damage per use. Since FL/GL are essential, even if you can't play a card while drawing 2 with EoW, it is still worth it, and you aren't losing that much. So not always using initialize, but having the extra utility is great sometimes.
I like EoW Bunker pretty decently. He has nine copies of mode cards in his deck, and so he is more likely to draw mode cards than other heroes are to draw their ongoing destruction. The only thing really bad about him is that there are some villains that he's just mostly useless against, cough the Enead.
I completely agree with Pydro about his setup. Having things like Heavy Plating and Ammo Drop out while in Turret Mode is great, but not necessary to Bunker meaningfully contributing to the war effort.
Sorry, laser eye surgery and general summer slowness with our group has limited playing time.
Game 13 (track 2) - Bunker EOW, Fanatic, Fixer, Elemental AZ, vs. Ambuscade at Silver Gulch
Statistical Results: Hero win after 6 turns.
MVP - Fanatic with her whatevr card that lets her do damage = base vs. current HP
Fun: 3/5
Danger: 2/5
Shining Moment: Fanatic as above, Fixer w/Grease Gun
I'd finally picked up my Ambuscade and SG promo decks, so we were on. Ambuscade drew 2 reactive armors in the initial draw, which took three turns to burn through. We spent our first turn or two blasting through the subsequent gun-stuff that came out, then focused on the Ablative. Fortunately (?) we got Explosives Wagon at the end of the first turn, which canceled out the ablative. We took some heavy hits as a result, but it let us keep up with Amby's devices.
Once we cleared the reactive on turn 4, Fanatic was down to 10 and she unleashed her heavy-hitter for 20 damage to Ambuscade.
A Grease Gun by Fixer on turn 5 protected us from... Tyler at SGulch? Whoever machineguns everyone for 2. He hit Amby, and hit Amby's sonic mines, which we were all protected from. That plus Amby's hit-everyone device that came out on turn 6 meant the GGun negated about 40 points of damage. Nobody would have gone down on the 10 HPs each, but it made things a lot safer. Bunker omni'd Ambuscade and Fanatic plinked away his remaining damage on Turn 6, and it was game over.
Bunker EOW never got to use his power because a) Amby never played Ongoings, and b) Bunker never drew a Mode card. (Flak Cannon on the first turn meant he was a consistent heavy-hitter.) AbZero got both modules out early, and a Thermal shockwave gave him 7 HP of healing on turn 4 and more damage. Other than that, it was his base power all the way.
Fixer was a slow-steady hitter. He played the redirect damage Style on the first turn, but then Explosives Wagon came out and that one was useless. He plinked away at the non-reactive devices, played Tool Box twice, and got the Grease Gun and Duel Crowbars, which let him administer the beat-down to Amby and another device once the reactives were cleared.
Fanatic just kept hitting cards. Never did get a second power out, but kept playing the card that let her do damage and draw a card, giving her a steady stream of more cards.
The main factor in the win is that Amby just isn't that tough. Take away his reactive, and he never gets his cloaking (he didn't in this game), and 50 HPs just doesn't give him much survivability. He's the proverbial glass ninja. His lack of device destruction meant that he couldn't do much against the ongoing-equipment-heavy Loser team.
Grease Gun doesn't just protect Heroes from non-Hero targets. It protects everybody.
For some reason, I have been playing a lot of hime recently. I wanted to share some thoughts on him, as well as how I play him.
EDIT: Moved to its own thread.
Bunker.docx (33.2 KB)
With the Tyler damage negated by the grease gun, it would have only let the next hero take him out, so no biggy.
Game 14 (track 2) - Elemental AZ, Fixer, Bunker EOW, Expat vs. Ennead at Ruins of Atlantis
Statistical Results: Hero win after 8 turns.
MVP - Expat for the consistent heavy-hitter, AZ once he was incapacitated
Fun: 3/5
Danger: 3/5
Shining Moment: An incapacitated AZ immobilizing the Environmental deck
Going through villain/environment what we haven't done yet. AZ had horrible draws and got none of his modular stuff (or his card to get modular stuff. As such, he really didn't do much. At least he could do a little damage. if it had been his base version... ugh.
Fixer got his steady 3-damage combo down and just pretty much kept running it. He started with Duel Crowbars, lost that, went with Jack Handle. Harmony, +1 damage-any-type Style, and that brought her home.
Bunker EOW did almost nothing until the last round. Grenade Launchered until he lost that. Grenades the Enviro deck once. If there's no ongoings out, his power is pretty much a waste. He got down an Omni-Cannon on 7, loaded three cards into it on 8, and finished off the last Ennead. Low hand size kept him from putting down the Gatling Gun. He picked up three cards on Ammo Drop when the first three Ennead went down.
Expat was a steady hitter throughout. She got out the Tac Shotgun, lost the Tac to an Ennead destruction card, got out Pride and then Prejudice, Flak Jacketed a couple of times, RPG launchered the phosphorerent chamber. Nepthys was the first to be incapacitated, and her incap power to lose one card per turn kept Expat from drawing and keeping any cards. :(
Our main winning points were bad luck for the Ennead. They a) never drew any of their "bring out more Ennead" cards, b) were primarily green and black, and c) we drew mostly red cards. It was pretty much a straight shooting match, and even with Bunker kinda useless, we outshot them.
The Kraken came out on the first turn, but we finessed it to make sure an Ennead member was always low on the totem pole until turn 5. We lost AZ to it then. As for the enviro deck, once AZ went down on Turn 5, he kept using his incap power on the enviro deck and we just avoided whatever trouble that could have caused. The Ennead Incap that takes out the non-character card with the lowest hitpoints destroyed the Kraken, Expat took out the Chamber, and we shot up the Mystical Weaponry.
Gislev,
Nice! I may start using Bunker EOW soon. Between the alternate character and Pydro's analysis, he be redeemed.
Well, I was going by Least Effective Heroes. Or Most Incapacitated, as it's the same thing.
We're really not very impressed with the EOW version. It's conditional on a) the villain having Ongoings, and b) EOW having the Modes when he needs him.
The Modes are almost a quarter of the deck. I've found him very effective against Iron Legacy.
If he draws them on the first turn or two. After that, EoW probably won't be long enough to do much of anything, especially if he gave up his power use on the other two turns. :)
This happened the other day - I chose EoW Bunker against Iron Legacy and drew a Turret Mode in the first turn, which I ditched to get rid of one of Lgacy's ongoings. The fact that I didn't see another Mode card for the rest of the game (about four or five more rounds) meant that I couldn't destroy the Superhuman Redirection he had out...which meant Fanatic couldn't use her Wrathful Retribution on him when she was down to 5hp. The third character in the party was Tempest. Neither of those guys got out their ongoing destruction either.
Also, EOW is giving up his power phase to destroy an ongoing. Most folks (exempting... Visionary? and one or two others I"m sure I'm forgetting) give up their play phase to destroy an ongoing and then use their power on the power phase.
Someone playing a card to remove one of IL's ongoing still has a power.
If EOW is dedicating his power phase to removing the ongoing, either a) he played an Ongoing/Limited during his turn to give him a power, which he can't use that turn because he removed the IL ongoing, or b) is using one of his other one-shots. Which are nice but really aren't huge game-changers, IMO. Especially against IL. Bunker's plating is probably his best bet. Not to say those one-shots aren't useful...