So we played a 2 player game last night against the Singularity for the first time. After nearly 3 grueling hours, we finally took the Flagship down (tack on another 30 min to clean the board)
We play strictly with Elite Mode activated (but without the bonus W/D to deployed ships) because the flavor of each Opp really comes into their own with those additional effects.
Our Sectors were Oothagos, Trade Outpost, and the Wastes. We ran the Conclave and Basilios.
Oh boy. Where do I begin. To start, we got screwed on the initial flop. 3 of the 4 starting ships were Alpha Primes. It became clear very early that the Dispersing Programming had to be stopped. We couldn't take all the extra Opp boosts and ships between emerging Gatherers and the sector wide Dispersing in the sector with the least Opps. We had to be careful, because we knew we needed one sector to Overrun as quick as possible (most likely in the Wastes since the Overrun side would be an asset in certain respects), but we also knew that with 3 Alphas to start, bringing the Singularity out off the bat would likely lead to the absorbtion of all of them. That turned out to be largely unavoidable however.
We were doomed to a long game and we knew it. By the 3rd round, Singularity was finally brought into existence in the Wastes. The Trade Outpost was also lost by this time. Our only Option was to hold down the Oothagos Expanse (fitting I know). We were getting bombarded with cross sector ship deployment in Oothagos on the regular, making us stay there to prevent a total loss for way more rounds than we would have liked. As we were fighting to stay in the game in Oothagos, Singularity would keep on racking up the W/D. Primes moving into the Wastes were always terrible for obvious reasons, but for each ship deployed and scrapped for being over the fleet limit Singularity would continue to amass energy.
Eventually, with 1 Opp ship remaining in Oothagos, we decided there was no way we could keep letting him build. We needed to act. We moved into the Wastes as Singularity was topping near 60 total Energy (split rather evenly between W/D). Basilios engaged, dealing 28 damage but taking a whopping 19 in the exchange, leaving him with 2 shields (yes this was after a double shield boost and secondary engage from Conclave). Another assault direct assault would kill Basilios but leave the Singularity wounded enough for Conclave to sweep in and finish up, however 2 Opp ships found their way in the Aftermath to reinforce Oothagos. We had no choice. We had to bail out.
It took another few rounds after that to secure Oothagos enough to where Basilios could leave again for another assault, but Singularity has also been regaining much of its lost W/D, going back up to around 15D before Basilios went in again for another attack. Conclave had to stay behind and continue to bash incoming ships to stave off overruning our last sector. Basilios, with very few shields (but a TON of artifacts and the Tech to scrap artifact tokens instead of energy loss), managed to wittle Singularity down to 14W/0D, but lost every shield, artifact, and weapon Tech to do it (thank baby jesus for scrap effects!).
By the time the Singularity was broken, there were 7 Opps in the Wastes, 6 in the Trade Outpost, and 2 in Oothagos (and ready to flip more), and the mission deck had been empty for a few rounds. 5 Gatherers spread between the Trade Outpost and Wastes. A hand-crushing 4 Hunters were surrounding the Wastes for the lion share of the game.
The battle was won, but the war was yet to be decided. The next steps were crucial. Basilios, mortally wounded, ran back to Oothagos to help the Conclave. Any cross sector movment into Oothagos after Opp ships deployed would make it impossible to prevent an overrun, and a loss. With a little luck on our side, and some clutch station manipulation skills, we cleared the sectors and snagged a hard fought win.
Eyes bloodshot, mouths dry, and tushies compfortably numb (what, you didn't notice my forum avatar yet?), we decided to get some sleep. It was 3am afterall and we both had work in the morning.