There should be a new Story Challenge - Win on the first hero turn.
Does this actually work? I've always played one shots where they don't go to the discard pile until their entire effect is resolved. In this case DDE would not be in the discard pile to be reclaimed since the reclaim was being used as an effect of DDE.
That is exactly true, good work at pointing that out!
Dammit. Hmm... So an infinite combo is not possible, but can we perhaps output insane amounts of card play, power use and damage in a single hero turn?
Let's try this then: The Scholar and Omnitronks, and three others. Let's say Legacy, Chrono-Ranger and TLTachyon. The Scholar plays Proverbs; all heroes may use a power.
Legacy uses Galvanise, Tachyon uses Team Leader. Scholar uses Better Living, because why not. For OX's power, he Timeshifts Scholar, bringing out DDA; all heroes may play a card.
Legacy plays Inspiring Presence, CR plays By Any Means, OX plays Defensive Blast; Tachyon plays Fleet of Foot, Fleet of Foot, Fleet of Foot, Lightning Reflexes, Lightning Reflexes, Supersonic Response, Supersonic Response, Lightspeed Barrage, for a total of 28 damage.The Scholar plays his second DDA; all heroes may play a card.
Chrono-Ranger plays Eye on the Prize, Eye on the Prize, Eye on the Prize, Eye on the Prize, Terrible Tech-Strike, for a total of 25 damage. Legacy plays Back-Fist Strike for 7 damage. Tachyon plays Lightspeed Barrage for 8 damage. OX plays a 4-Type plating, then the Scholar plays Proverbs to allow OX to Defensive Blast for 16 damage. Then CR shoots the big bad for 4.
So that's 88 damage on the first hero turn; good enough for most villains, but probably not optimal. I'll work on it.
EDIT: Tachyon deals 36 damage, and assists nobody, so we can swap her out for Nightmist; play an Amulet of the Elder Gods first, then Heedless Lash [1], Heedless Lash [3], Heedless Lash [2], Oblivion [4], then reveal and discard two more [4]s, for a total of 38 damage (and 19 to herself, or 21 with the Proverb damage).
EDIT EDIT: Actually, why are we using Omnitronks? Play the two DDAs, getting out Inspiring Presence and By Any Means, then play Proverbs for the powers afterwards, mostly to Galvanise, before going back and playing the rest of the available cards. We lose OX's paltry 16, but by putting in both Tachyon and Nightmist we get an impressive total of 110 damage on the first hero turn.
Tachyon's Supersonic Response relies on her being hit, and she's neither the highest nor the lowest HP in that group so her getting hit by the villain is a difficult task.
EDIT: But that's impressive calculating
Don't you mean Synaptic Response? I'm not sure she has a "supersonic" card. Hypersonic, yes, but not supersonic, I don't think?
Synaptic Interruption is the redirection one.
Supersonic Response deals 2 damage as an attack and then 2 additional damage if she was damaged by the target last turn.
Tachyon's quick but surely you have time to read the cards! 
Ohhh that one! Oops, I forgot about that - I don't tend to actually play it that often ;). Plus most of the words in Tachyon's deck are kind of similar (in that they relate to fast speeds) - supersonic, hypersonic, lightning, lightspeed, etc. Then you've got attack words like assault and barrage and I often find I have to mentally double-check I have a card name right (eg I'm not thinking of "Hypersonic Barrage" or "Lightspeed Reflexes") when I'm thinking about her deck and don't have the cards in front of me (like now) ;). I tend to get the picture first, then the name/effect.
Two round victory against the dreamer:
Heroes: any four, including fanatic and omni-x.
First round: The dreamer plays any card
Fanatic plays end of days, which then destroys all of the dreamers initilal projections.
Second round: The dreamer, after flipping, plays a violent nightmares. At the end of it's turn, after attacking the heroes, it plays two more violent nightmares
Omni-x plays some card,and timeshifts the dreamer, bringing out another violent nightmares(There are only three, but they say shuffle the villan trash into the villan deck)
Fanatic plays another end of days.
Environment turn: end of days destroys all of the dreamer's projections, puutting them under her.
next villan turn: because there are h*2 cards under the dreamer, the heroes win
Don't have my decks in front of me right now.... Is chained Primeval Eruption => All the Limbs => End of Days enough to one-shot her? Potential victory on environment turn 1.
The dreaded Omnitron: dual-electropulse explosive turn 1 is enough to dispatch most hero teams by the start of turn 2.
Man, I remember when we played a lot of Arkham Horror that you can (and we occasionally did) lose during setup. Is this possible on SotM? Can any hero team lose the game before any hero gets a turn?
Possibly.
The End of Days would do 9+10+11+27+30+36 due to multiple Mountainous Carapace=123 so if the Heroes and Environment can do 67 damage in a single round... time for a new thread on the max damage each hero can do in their first turn!
Let's see, if Chrono-Ranger plays By Any Means, Argent Adept boosts Akash'Butha's attack, Rook City Wraith draws an Obsidian Field, and the Visionary plays Twist the Ether, that'd add 48 points of damage. Can more be done?
Well, not quite.
In a five hero game, iron legacy can do twenty-two damage to each hero target using the following sequence
Setup: his five ongoing cards he get out to start would be:
Galvanized, Galvanized, Demoralizing Presence, Demoralizing Presence, Final Evolution
(In that order)
When the final evolution enters play, Iron legacy deals each non-villan target one(I think toxic) damage, which, of course, is buffed by the other ongoings, making it five
Total hero damage:5
Start of villan turn:
Well, Nothing happens.Lame
Total hero damage:5
Villan play phase:
Iron legacy plays "Rule From The Front", causing hime to deal each hero(maybe non-vilan) target (H-1) melee damage. This, after applying all the buffs, is eight damage
Total hero damage:13
End of villan turn:
Iron legacy deals each hero target three melee damage, buffed to seven
Total hero damage: 20
Because of the two demoralizing presence, each hero taret deals themself one psycic damage twice
Total hero damage:22
Sidenote: well, if two or more former allies cards are chained before the rule from the front(They say play the top card of the villan deck), then the reaminng heroes will not be able to play cards as well.
Kind of, I worked a way where you don't use End of Days.
Villain turn
Primeval Erruption->any 4 limbs
4 Environment cards discarded (4 total)
Primeval Erruption plays top villain card->Primeval Erruption2
Primeval Erruption2->any 4 limbs
4 Environment cards discarded (8 total)
Primeval Erruption2 plays top villain card->Primeval Erruption3
Primeval Erruption3->any 4 limbs
4 Environment cards discarded (12 total)
Primeval Erruption plays top villain card->Disrupt the Field
Disrupt the Field kills all Environment cards->None
Disrupt the Field->Disrupt the Field2
Disrupt the Field2 kills all Environment cards->None
Disrupt the Field2->Any villain card
Disrupt the Field2->Oxygen Leak
Disrupt the Field->Oxygen Leak2
/Villain turn
Tachyon's turn
Lightning Reflexes
Lightning Reflexes-> Synaptic Interruption
Lightning Reflexes-> Synaptic Interruption
/Tachyon's turn
Argent Adept's Turn
Syncopated onslaught
power=Syncopated onslaught->Mr Fixer&Akash'Bhuta
/Argent Adept's Turn
Scholar's turn
Don't Dismiss Anything
Scholar->Grace Under Fire (10 damage to Akash'Buta)
Mr Fixer->Alternating Tiger Claw
Argent Adept->Polyphoric Flare
Polyphoric Flare->Syncopated onslaught->Mr Fixer&Akash'Bhuta
/Scholar's turn
Mr Fixer's turn
Overdrive->3x2 irreducible damage to Akash'Bhuta (16)
/Mr Fixer's turn
Environment turn
Oxygen Leak1 kills all limbs, Akash'Bhuta deals herself a total of 147 damage (12 limbs, killing the Carapace's first and +2 damage from Syncopated Onslaught) (163)
Oxygen Leak deals 12 to Akash'Bhuta (175)
Oxygen Leak deals 12 to Tachyon, who redirects it to Akash'Bhuta (187)
Oxygen Leak2 deals 12 to Akash'Bhuta (199)
Oxygen Leak2 deals 12 to Tachyon, who redirects it to Akash'Bhuta (211)
Heroes win!
I'm sure there are multiple other ways
Getting out by any by any means with a sudden contract, or chaining eyes-on-the-prize
If he does that against the Freedom Six (not technically kosher, but certainly thematic), he gets some extra damage from nemesis bonuses and the H=6, which would end up doing 26 damage to the team, leaving only Tachyon, Zero, and Bunker alive. If he plays Vigilance as his sixth card, each remaining hero would have the opportunity to play one card before immediately dying.
EDIT: Was referring to Pppery's IL post.
Wouldn't work, Akash has three layers of Mountainous Carapace to get through.
I thought H values are supposed to be between 3-5?
Add the following two heroes to the chain(in this order, before chrono-ranger and fanatic)
Argent-adept, mister fixer
Villan turn:After chainging three primeval eruptionas to get all the limbs, the villan plays a disrupt the field and then any card.The environment play of disrupt the field is a fixed point.
Argents turn: Argent adept plays Alacratous subdominant, then uses his power to activate the perform of it, letting mister fixer play a card, riveting crane(the style that makes damage to a target that mr fixer attacked irreducible)
Mr fixer's turn:Mr fixer plays alternating tiger claw(the style that makes mr fixer's damage irreducible). You would think this would be pointless, but remember fixed point…
Mr fixer then strikes, dealing one irreducible damage to ab. This then makes damage to ab irreducible.
Now the remaining heroes can hit ab with one damage as often as they please.
To make up for some of the buffs to ab that you suggested, add the scholar(between fixer and cr)
Scholar's turn: Scholar plays Don't Dismiss anything;
Argent gets out Xu's bell(if i have the type of the songs correctly)
Scholar gets another Don't dismiss anything:
Argent gets out Syncopated onslaught
Scholar gets out Proverbs and Axioms:
Argent uses the power of xu's bell:
Perform:buff another hero and ab(Syncopated onslought)
Accompany:You may use a power now. If you do, destroy this card(Alacratous subdominant)
Argent adept chooses to use her base power, vocalize(activate a perform)
Perform:buff another hero and ab again(Syncopated onslought)
Note: i actually don't have the scholar i am simply using it off of my understanding of it from other forum posts.
Can you expand the scholar chain more, so argent can buff ab a third time?(Heroes:Fixer, Chrono-ranger, Fanatic, Scholar, argent)
Can you emit so much extra damage that this method is better?(Hint: The fixer strike combo adds three damage because the carapaces don't protect ab from hitting herself when they are destroyed.
If you play with 6, H=6.