Ultimate Mad Bomber Blade vs. Road Warrior Mainstay, Stuntman, Setback, and DW Mr Fixer in Silver Gulch.
Good luck!
OWWWWWWWWWWWWWW.
My first attempt was lost, and I figured that out on the second round.
Holy Mother of God, was that brutal.
I got a “Fine.” Lost the first two games. Won the third with 0/4/0/5. The incapacitated abilities of VG Mainstay and Setback were the final winners, and they let Stuntman hit off-turn with irreducible damage. The Baron had 2 Living Forcefields up, so he was the only one hitting.
However, most folks here are going to be interested in the earlier stages.
I figure you’ve got two rounds to get the Baron to flip. He’s going to hit you with 0, then 6, then 8, then 11 damage otherwise.
The early key was using Mr. Fixer’s Meditation Card to bring Riveting Crane out. I didn’t do that the first game, and when the 11 damage round hit, I was toast. In the second game, I got it out so that everyone could hit the Baron, but didn’t do damage fast enough. I took him down in the round of 8, but my heroes were too wounded to make it. The third game I got the Baron down to 2 by the end of Round 2 and had used Setback’s Turn of Events, so Mainstay had his power doubled. He took the blow of 8, then punched back for 1+1, which caused the flip.
Even then, it was in doubt. Once the Baron flipped, Riveting Crane went away and it became hard for anyone other than Stuntman to hurt him. Thus, the incapacitated abilities for the win.
This seems unwinnable. It’s a damage race, and we’ve got heroes who aren’t really all that good at dealing the sort of massive damage required to bypass the Baron’s 2 damage reduction (3, since Living Force Field comes out early). It doesn’t help that the Baron gets some really great rounds which bump his damage up rapidly.
The key to the front side seems to be Riveting Crane, but that gets trashed after the Baron flips, and there’s no recovery after that. The heroes just end up flailing ineffectively while the Baron kills them one by one. Stuntman’s base power is the only reliable source of damage at that point, since it bypasses DR.
On the positive side, Dark Watch Fixer is less restrained than usual, since Mainstay and Stuntman are fine with Fixer destroying their cards.
The environment is largely a non-issue until the Explosives Wagon comes out. It’s a boost for the heroes, but they die almost immediately afterward so it’s just a short bump in power.
Messed up horribly in the first round using my anti-ongoings to ping out the forcefields, allowing a backlash thing to stay in play meaning I couldn't win the race at all.
I also did not use Riveting Crane in my first attempt -- Yikes.
About to try my third game.
The Baron ramps up REAL FAST.
Finally got a fine with 0/6/0/6 after 4 tries.
Seems to me you need to focus everything on keeping Stuntman alive, no matter the cost, and especially if the cost is Mainstay and Setback go down, as they can feed Stuntman more power uses that deal irreducible damage. Played Leader of the Pack to redirect everything I could from Stuntman to Mainstay early, leading Mainstay to dropping by the third round, but leaving Stuntman around 20hp at the flip. Through careful use of redirects and healing, I kept plinking away slowly at Blade until Setback finally dropped as well. At that point though, the Baron was close enough that one more round of boosted irreducible damage brought him down.
It also seems to me that Fumbling Fool the first round is very helpful in terms of keeping the environment from picking on the heroes early, but I am not sure its enough.
~Komori
Fine.
On my fourth of fifth try, I can't remember.
It does seem to almost require keeping Stuntman alive and having Mainstay and Setback's incap abilities feed the irreducilbe Stuntman power some spam.
At least it's pretty short?
Stuntman 1HP, Mr. Fixer 4HP and Mainstay and Setback 0HP.
Well, this one is a matryoshka doll of problems. I approached it a slightly different way, and finally succeeded after many, many attempts.
I'll give a general overview, then go into more detail beneath.
First phase
1. Riveting Crane is phenomenal.
2. Bring it is extremely useful for the first phase.
3. Turn order matters- Mainstay can do a LOT of damage when the baron flips if you time it right.
Second Phase
1. Get rid of Living Forcefield
2. If you redirect backlash damage to the baron, he hits himself.
3. Friendly fire.
Here's how I approached it:
Main problem bomb side: You need to take Baron Blade out before the second round (so that he doesn't hit you for 8).
Riveting Crane can get your through the -2 armor, but it was Mainstay's Bring It that really shone. Shard Strength + Leader of the Pack meant that every time someone hit the Baron, Mainstay would tank and retaliate for 2 irreducible points. I saved my ongoing destruction for the second phase, and powered him down, flipping him round 2 on Setback's turn (Turn of Events is key).
Sub-problem- on flip, he destroys everything
If you take some time with turn order, you can double up on Bring It while damage is still irreducible, then when the Baron flips, you can immediately play the Void Belter, use it and destroy it for 10 damage to the flipped baron.
Main problem, death ray side: Nanobot armor means that you need irreducible damage or 3+ damage.
Mainstay Strategy: Either stay alive and try to keep the environment in check/play ongoings for Fixer, or die and help setback/stuntman draw cards. I found that since I was keeping the Backlash field in place, drawing was worth more than Stuntman getting extra power uses.
Stuntman: since you won't have much HP, and the Baron has a backlash field, be very careful about using your irreducible damage. I found that I saved it for off-turns, so that I could essentially trade 3 stuntman HP for 3 Baron HP. Stuntman and setback were key in managing appearances from extra backlash fields and forcefields- you need to get rid of them ASAP. Keeping the environment in check was also crucial.
Setback: I focused on getting friendly fire out and immediately pummeling setback to build up a pile of tokens. This is because if you get REALLY aggressive with it, Stuntman, Fixer, and Mainstay all have the ability to hit multiple times, which will proc Friendly Fire multiple times. Setback's HP will plummet, but if you can get Wrong Time and Place out when he has 10+ tokens, you can really unload on the baron. After my 5th defeat, I started cheating FLAGRANTLY with Cash Out, so that I knew exactly what order Setback's cards were in to maximize his usefulness. It still took me over a dozen games to beat the Baron.
Fixer strategy: After the flip, get rid of the forcefield (I used Kick the Tires), and keep the backlash field around. Your goal is to get Fixer his Pipe Wrench and Driving Mantis, so that he can consistently redirect the backlash damage, which hits the Baron for 1 each time. This will cause the Baron to hit himself for 1. Be really, really careful if the Water Trough comes out- it increases lightning damage. I got rid of it with Mainstay.
I suppose there have been enough slow one-shots for a damage race. I'm just gonna bide my time on this one until enough posts are up.
Attempt 2 led to me flipping him and then dying.
[Censored] Devious Disruption.
Fine, but that was rough! 4th attempt...
Finally got it on try 4 or 5 , 0/4/0/0
I suicided VG Mainstay early into baron blade to try to flip him before enemy turn using the leader of the pack/shard combo.
5th time, 4/0/0/6. Riveting Crane is huge, obviously. I hated it the first couple of times I played it but that win was super-satisfying.
Near Mint. First attempt, I saw how critical Riveting Crane would be and thought I did a reasonable job burning through the front side of Blade, but I lost Stuntman early on the flip side and had no good way to get through the last half of Blade's HP with the 2 DR.
The second attempt is the kind of one-shot that I dislike (see the Dark Watch vs. Matriarch one from a while back): the tiniest bit of foreknowledge gives you a plan that turns the game from near-certain loss to near-certain victory. In this case, all I changed was how I played Mainstay. Looking at his opening hand, I didn't see how Shard-Strength would be a particularly effective play given the circumstances; sure, it would give a little extra counter damage, but a couple extra HP off Blade's front side didn't seem to be that big of a deal. Combine it with his first draw, however, and it turns into extra damage plus redirection to make Blade flip in the middle of the 8-damage AOE, saving the rest of the team from the big hit. Once Mainstay went down, oh look - he could pass powers to Stuntman and pile on more irreducible damage.
I’m still finding this impossible.
I can get Baron Blade to flip in the middle of round 2. I hadn’t realized how powerful Leader of the Pack would be in this situation. Yeah, it totally wrecks Mainstay, but it lets Mainstay do enough damage to Baron Blade to flip him. Provided, of course, that Riveting Crane is out.
I’m still not doing nearly enough damage to Blade on his flip side, since no one is hurting him but Stuntman and his base power. Sure, Stuntman gets opportunities to do stuff with Cliffhanger and In Media Res, but it’s still barely scratching Blade at 3 points each hit while Blade rapidly ramps up to 11+ points per attack.
Many of Stuntman’s usual bag of tricks are of no use. Hidden Mine does absolutely nothing, for example, if Blade has Living Force Field up.
EDIT: Tried again, lost again. This time the Baron got 2 Backlash Fields up, and no one drew cards to destroy them, so it was 6 points of damage to Stuntman if he tried to do 3 points. That wasn’t sustainable, of course, and pretty soon everyone was dead again. And no, Driving mantis / pipe wrench wasn’t much help.
Near Mint on my first try (achieved by mercilessly abusing the Rewind button. Mainstay down with Stuntman at 1, Setback at 5 and Fixer at 3. That was nothing short of brutal, but I can safely say that I've never appreciated Riveting Crane quite this much before!
I would definitely recommend setting things up so that Mainstay can play, use and destroy Void Belter during Blade’s flip. Getting 10 damage on his flip side while Riviting Crane is still in effect is pretty huge for getting a jump on the second side.
If I recall the last game I lost correctly, I did that. When the Baron flipped and started destroying things, I used Leader of the Pack's destruction effect to play Void Belter, used Shard Strength's destruction effect to use Void Belter's power, and then used Void Belter to destroy Void Belter. I seem to recall that Void Belter got the +1 damage from Shard Strength even though Shard Strength was destroyed. I should re-read the text on the card to see why.
Didn't matter. As I said, the Baron got 2 Backlash Fields up, which meant that I had a choice between waiting and dying or suiciding against the fields and dying.
I think I'm gonna need a step-by-step on this one. @_@ Tried again, used Riveting Crane, got him to flip on Setback's third turn, after Mainstay went down. Then everyone just kind of died, one by one, with no hope. Definitely not catching the winning strategy out of everyone's posts.