Villain lieutenants, for super advanced difficulty

General GTG General Discussion
1

I had an idea a while back for upping the difficulty for each villain.  This is because in 5 player matches, the villains tend to see the worst of it more often than not...and even with three players, there are villains that are easier.

So, why not give the villains new lieutenants that increase their difficulty, or give them an advantage?  Some of these are cards with high HP that give the villain an advantage (somtimes even with incap effects), and some are global modifiers that you can't get rid of. 

BB- Igor the lab assistant (30 HP):

End of V turn, play the top card of the deck. Redirect the first damage that would be dealt to BB every turn to Igor.

(artwork: A blade minion in a labcoat, holding up a testube, being berated by the Baron)

Incapacitated effect: Whenever Baron Blade attacks the Hero with the Highest HP, he also deals the same damage to the hero with the second highest.

 

Voss- Admiral Ulkath (30 HP):

End of V turn, if there are no ships in play, search the deck for a ship and put it into play.

If all ships are in the trash, put one on the bottom of the deck.

Reduce damage to ships by 1.

(Artwork: A Thorathian in a military uniform with medals, on the bridge of a starship, looking at a holographic earth)

Incapacitated Effect: All ships regain (H-2) HP at the start of the villain turn.

 

Cit. Dawn- Citizen Dusk (40 HP):

Redirect all damage that would be dealt to Dawn to Citizen Dusk.

Increase damage by citizens by 1.

At the start of their turn, heroes may deal themselves 3 radiant damage to play an extra card.

(I chose this because Dawn has enough resets to be painful, and I liked the idea of him "helping" his daughter and the heroes...which is why there isn't a citizen dusk anymore!)

Incapacitated Effect: Start of villain turn- All Heroes may draw a card. If they do, Play the top card of Citizen Dawn's deck. 


 

Omnitron- Prototype Omnidroid (40 HP):

End of V turn, Omnidroid searches trash for a component, plays it on itself.

It then then deals H-2 energy damage to hero w/highest.

(Artwork: A barely humanoid robot, heavily loaded with weaponry. Looks like a VERY early version of Omhnitron-X)

Incapacitated Effect: All components are only destroyed after Omnitron takes 10 damage/round 


 

Chairman/operative- The Lawyer (No HP, is not a target):

At end of V turn, The lawyer looks for an underboss card in the trash, puts it on bottom of deck.

(seemed like a natural extension of the mechanic)

(Artwork: A sharply dressed man at the police station, opening his briefcase and cocking his eyebrow at at the cops.)


 

The Ennead: The Altar of Immortality- (No HP, is not a target)

End of V turn, If no Sun cards have been played, the Ennead acts as if one had been put into trash.

If no Ankh cards have been played, the Ennead acts as if one had been put into the trash.

(this prevents being crippled by takedown or mistbinding- but their nastiest hits come off of elemental cards, so they don't get full love.)(artwork: a richly decorated altar with the Ennead's cup on it)


 

Apostate: Curator Moriarty (20 HP)- At the end of the V turn, search the deck and trash for the "Tome of the Unknowable" and put it in play. 

(Because the tome is hugely powerful, and can be a gamechanger)

(Artwork: An evil looking old man with all sorts of relics around him, reading out loud from the tome)

Incapacitated effect: the first time each turn a Hero damages a relic, apostate deals them 1 melee damage.


 

Matriarch: Call of the Corvidae (No HP, not a target)

Whenever a "Fowl" card is played, the matriarch deals the hero target with the highest HP 1 sonic damage.

 

Plague Rat: Virulent Mutation (No HP, not a target)

At the start of the Villain turn, roll a D6. All damage by Plague Rat and infected heroes is changed to: 
1. Cold
2. Fire
3. Psychic
4. Infernal

5,6. Toxic 

2

OH MY GOD THESE LOOK SO FUN. I was just starting tp get bored playing Sentinels (since I STILL don't have Timelines :( ) but these will revive my interest quite nicely. Have you tried these out? Are they actually beatable?

3

I've tried each one, and they are beatable. 

Voss's Admiral is great for 4-5 player games, since his minions don't last long. 

 

4

Honestly, I am most excited for Igor. But Voss's seems....impossible. Those ships are the only villain target I deem big enough to consistently use Cedistic Dissonant on (paying, mind you, a high price in my mind), so having them come back all the time.... ouch.

5

These are wonderful and horrible.  Sort of like sausage gravy and biscuits. 

6

For Voss:

Ah, but they only come into play if they are in the deck!  and it happens at the end of turn, so you have a full round before you get hit with their hateful "start of turn" effects.  It also specifies that you only look for one if there aren't any ships in play, so you don't get oner, then two, then three at once (unless you get unlucky with the cards). Once they are all in the trash, one of them gets put back in (to be pulled out next turn), but you get a reprieve.  

I'll admit the ships are brutal.  

The main problem I've run into with Voss is that spcifically in 5 player games, his minions become a non-issue. even with the Advanced rules, we can (usually) handle them.  Even with damage reduction, 3 HP isn't a high threshold.  And since (without his ships) he doesn't have any ongoing/equipment destruction, the players tend to get strong enough to handle pretty much anything.  The Quark Drives are interesting, but the ships and Forced Deployment are generally Voss's gamechangers (and Forced deployment tends to be either an "I win" card or "We got this" if the heroes have AoE and some ongoing destruction). the ships are a fairly radical departure from the rest of his deck, in that they are high HP, have multiple effects, and enhance his mechanic.

Basically- its hard.  not impossible, especially with a 5 player team.  I wouldn't add the admiral with a 3 player group unless ytou were really confident in your abilities!

       

 

7

Do you have prototype cards with artowrok for us to print? Or if anyone takes it upon themselves to do one up? hmmm?

8

No, I'm no artist.  I just like including text descriptions of how I think they look to help my imagination.

For some reason, I tend to have an easier time thinking about mechanics when I've got an image, or story, or something like that.

9

Love this idea, so very much.

Fanatic would toast the Admiral, lock down one ship and his role is over, other than that it would be pretty nasty, which is good.

Igor sounds awesome.  That extra card and slowing down beating on Blade, really cool way to toughen his deck.  If you didn't have incidental play phase damage you'd have to focus down Igor to start.  Love his incap, but do you mean targets highest HP initially, or actually damages highest, would be a big difference for redirection.

The alter of immortality would be fun to play with on normal, I don't think advanced needs that much help.  With all alive you are guaranteed three cards played, that's tough.

Moriarty Should have a way of forcing players to draw cards if the tome in in play, otherwise the whole game just becomes managing the tome each round, I dig bringing it out, but what about if it is out?  Something like:

At the start of the villain turn, if the tome of the unknowable is in play each hero must draw a card, then destroy Tome of the unknowable.  If Tome of the Unknowable is not in play, search the trash and put it into play.  That would be sick.  At that point you have to clean up the mess that just occured, and be able to kill tome when it comes back out.  More chance of the snowball in hell doom.

Call of the Corvidae really jacks up the Matriarch's difficulty, makes Legacy less amazing against her, reducing her damage more important.  I'll have to try it out before I make a judgement, but I like where it is going.

Absolutely love Omnidroid and Lawyer, just brilliant for the setting, and the game play is good too.

Not so fond of Mutation, that effect seems like a good incap side ability of somthing the humans would try to keep alive, maybe some researcher studying mutations that Plague rat goes after.

Dusk I'm just not sure of, will definitely have to try it out.

10

Nope.  It's a character card.  Thats why it has an incapacitated side.  As for the non-HP ones, they are indestructible.  Non end of Days/Into the stratosphere shenanigans.

11

Here's some ideas for potential lieutenants for other villains.  I'm going to test them, I am really digging the options this idea could bring to the game.

I'd love to see Ambuscade with a dog or something like that that did something to heroes Ambuscade damages, something like:  When Ambuscade damages a hero target, reduce damage dealt by that target by 1 till the start of the next villain turn.  Since his nasty stuff all has HP, it would make fighting him potentially challenging.

I'd love to see La Capitan save her crewmates with time travel:

Parrotdox:  #HP

When a crew target would be destroyed shuffle the trash and reveal the top card, if it is a one-shot, restore the crew target to 1 health and negate detruction.  If the revealed card is a crew target, allow destruction, then heal 2hp to all villain targets.  It the revealed card is a relic, put it into play.

incap:  At the end of the villain turn if La Paradoja Magnifica is in play, flip this card and restore it to #hp

The Parrotdox would be a parrot, sitting on her shoulder or a beam, it would look half robotic with a glowing red eyepiece.  When a crewmember is killed, it does its best to travel back and save them, with varying results.

The Dreamer: Manipulator (not a target)

At the end of the environment turn take one card from under The Dreamer and put it into play, if there are no cards under the dreamer search the villain trash for a projection and put it into play.

Image would be the dreamer, but with some dark shadow-like hands with strings like a marionette moving her arms.  (not so much a lieutenant but an alternate version where there is something comtrolling her.)

Gloomweaver:  Frankly I could do a lot for him, there's so many great ways to make Gloomweaver more fun and more viable.

1.  Dedication of the Faithful:  Not a target 

At the start of the villain turn if there are 3 or more cultists in play destroy 3 cultists, then search the deck or trash for a relic and put it into play.  At the end of the villain turn, if there is a Zombie in play search the villain deck for a cultist, put it into play and destroy one zombie.

2.  High Priest Marthys:  10HP  When 0hp is reached, flip card and restore to full health.

Reduce damage dealt by targets of a voodoo card by 1.  At the end of the villain turn shuffle trash/reveal till a voodoo pin is revealed, put it into play, if no cards are played this way play the top card of the villain deck.

Other side:  Marthys, Zombie lord:  10hp

At the end of the villain turn, shuffle/reveal trash until Strength of grave or a zombie card is revealed, put it into play.  If no cards are played this way play the top 2 cards of the villain deck.  Strength of the grave is indestructible.

 

It would also be interesting to experiment with hero sidekicks/assistants that would improve hero gameplay, but doing that we'd almost need a points based system that would balance out hero boosts and villain boosts.  For example, an inventory specialist character that would let the heroes draw an extra card then discard one on their draw phase, or one that let heroes pay some cost to use an extra power, or a Q like (Bond not Star Trek) weapons guy that would let you destroy a card to put an ongoing or equip from your trash on top of your deck.

12

Sorry, didn't have my deck in front of me and didn't say that very clearly.  You'd want to chastise a ship, that way it is in play it can't damage you so it's mostly neutered but being in play it stops the admiral from causing more trouble.  

13

OK, So I have been testing a few of my ideas:

I love Parrotdox, and my group loves the idea of a time travelling Parrot, and also hate him a lot, but he does bring the challenge level up a solid notch.  We were using him at 12 HP in four player games.

I worked on the Dog for Ambuscade, and went through a bunch of versions, but I like this one best:

Rover, Supercanine Attack Dog. 15hp

The first time each round that Ambuscade deals damage to a hero that hero must discard/destroy two of their cards or skip their next turn.

Incap side:  

Faithful Companion.

At the start of the villain turn if there are two or more cards under this card, flip this card and restore to 15hp.

At the end of the villain turn shuffle the villain trash and reveal cards until a target is revealed, if their is no target in the villain trash reveal the top card of the villain deck.  A hero must put the top card of their deck under this card or the revealed card enters play.

The art would be Lassie-esque, to play off his movie star back story.  The first side hits you right off the bat, making someone discard two cards or skip their turn.  When you flip it you get to choose between flipping it back or more cards in play.  It is fun, and gives a very different feel to the game depending on which side it is on, and doesn't feel too much like a different villain.  We still used the when a trap card is shuffled in play the top card rule.

I really can't emphasize how much I enjoyed the Ambuscade one, he went from being really boring to being quite a bit of fun.