My friends and I had two awesome games that I wanted to share a few highlights from. I'm terrible with card names, so forgive my descriptions and I'll try to be brief.
Our first game we finally tried Spite (I've been scared of all of the RC villains, esp. since we've gotten owned by Plague Rat more than any other villain). We brought Tempest, The Naturalist, and Nightmist to take on Spite on the Mobile Defense Platform. The Naturalist spent most of the game in Rhino form and thanks to several timely plays of the various cards that redirected damage to him, our team barely took any damage. We were milling cards like it was our job thanks to that one drug, but all the damage from power use was getting redirected and negated for several turns, so no worries there. The game was odd in that by the end Nightmist had her entire deck in her hand, The Naturalist had spent 90% of the game in Rhino form, and a quick calculation tells us that Tempest dealt 76 of the damage needed to off Spite. It also sucked because the environment did pretty much nothing since Spite kept Mind phyre-ing every card that was played. At the end of the game I couldn't stop laughing at the idea of a "Drug-wracked Psychopath" chasing a rhino through the mist while getting slowly plinked to death by an alien.
The second game we wanted to try some of the Vengeance villains, and so it was Absolute Zero, Wraith, and The Sentinels vs. Baron Blade, Proletariat, and Ermine on the MDP (again since we felt we didn't get to see the full effect against Spite). We were off to a good start with a first turn Fueled Freeze destroying two of BB's Ongoings and Constant Prattle. If I was more knowledgable about Ermine's deck I would have saved that Fueled Freeze for her card that redirects the first damage she's dealt every turn. Proletariat went down right quick to the Idealist's relentless assault, but between Baron Blade's device that limited our powers and plays to one a turn and Ermine's ability to redirect attacks/put ongoings + equipment on top of our decks, we reached a bit of a stalemate.
Eventually, Baron Blade ended up wearing himself down with his base power until AZ could finish him off which knocked out his two Impulsion Beams(?). The Sentinels were struggling to stay alive against Ermine and the enviroment and keep ongoings in play against Calypso and we just couldn't figure out a way around Ermine's redirection. Meanwhile, the environment started to get out of control with 3 Shield Generators in play. The Sentinels managed to get the Idealist's Signature Power into play and they were giving AZ the card draws to try to pull a Fueled Freeze. Then I had an epiphany. With Focused Apertures and both Modules in play, AZ played Frostbound Drain. I dealt 4 Cold Damage to Ermine which was redirected to the hero with the highest HP which was AZ. Thanks for the 4 HP! With her redirection for the turn spent, I hit myself with the 3 Fire Damage and transduced it right back at Ermine for 4 Cold Damage. I managed to do that two turns in a row and then on the third turn pulled the Fueled Freeze that allowed Wraith to finish off her Nemesis on her following turn.
Altogether, that second game was probably the most fun game of Sentinels I've ever played. It had a real feeling of teamwork and was notable in that each player finished off one of the three villains. It did, however, raise two questions:
1) Ermine damages the hero with the 2nd lowest HP. If two heroes are tied at lowest, does it ignore both of them and still damage the next highest HP or does one of these heroes count as the second lowest? We played it as the former and we're hoping we played it right.
2) Ermine's base power reveals the top card of her deck etc. At one point Ermine's deck was empty. I think I remember reading that you only shuffle a deck if you need to draw or discard a card from a deck, not when revealing cards. We played it that since there was no card to reveal she would automatically default to her damaging power. I hope we played it right.
Thanks for reading! (BTW, I failed at keeping it brief)