Weekly One-Shot #287: Let's All Go to the Fun House

Games SotM: The Video Game
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The members of Dark Watch just wanted to have a day to relax at the carnival, without having to put on their team costumes. How were they to know that an arena full of space gladiators was itching for a fight under the big top?

Near Mint for me this time. I made the mistake of not focusing on Kaargra the first game, and she just kept punching heroes and racking up the Crowd’s Favor until it ended 20-18. This is probably the easiest time I’ve had in MMFFCC, though. The environment didn’t really get to do anything.

The second game, I think only one title was awarded to S’Sdari, who zapped Mr. Fixer while he was holding a Pipe Wrench. Nightmist with the Elder Ring casting Oblivion was the kicker here. Slim punched Kaargra to flip her back and win 23-8.

Mild spoilers for card order follow:

Kaargra’s second “Get Back in There!” comes immediately after Provocator Tarnis, which is then followed by Fickle Fans.

Nightmist’s first Oblivion is after Heedless Lash, and is followed by two cards each with 3 spell icon.

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Then they shouldn’t have gone to Madame Mittermier’s Fantastical Festival of Conundrums and Curiosities!

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Well, of course. But to paraphrase Pete from the intro blurb, what are the odds of this carnival being another haunted nightmare?

I mean, you’d have to have some kind of luck like being struck by lightning as you walk under a ladder with a black cat crossing in front of you!

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Well, at least this was fast…

Got a “Mint” on Mr. Fixer’s turn in round 3. He KO-ed Kaargra AND earned the heroes’ 20th favor point with the same attack, winning the match. I will admit it was nice getting both goals on one hit. The heroes limped out of the coliseum at 6/9/5/6/8.

I personally don’t really enjoy fighting Kaargra Warfang and the Bloodstone gladiators, since it frequently just seems like a damage-fest. But some matches are more fun than others. This felt like one of the others.

A key turn was on Harpy’s turn in round 2, when she let Nightmist play a series of cards (via “Swift Summoning”) that led to Nightmist earning 11 hero favor points and then Harpy earning 1 more. Another key move was Nightmist playing “Mistbound” on Kaargra on round 1, letting the heroes get a reprieve from Kaargra playing cards in round 2.

The heroes earned a reasonable number of titles. The environment did not have much effect on the game (it only got to play 2 cards), which is probably about as much as you can hope for at Madame Mittermeier’s Fantastical Festival of Conundrums and Curiosities.

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Yeah, seems like that’s always the case in the Bloodsworn Colosseum. You either win fast, or you lose.

I really like the idea of titles (moreso when the heroes are earning them), but I rarely get to enjoy them for long enough. Almost wish I could go vs. OblivAeon with the Title Deck in play… :thinking::thought_balloon::boom::scream:

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Yeah, this did not happen for me, I still lost to Idessa on round 4. No idea how people are getting through this one.

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If its any consolation, if my heroes hadn’t won when they did, I don’t think they would have survived the next villain round, either by the entire team getting incapacitated or by the Bloodsworn getting 20 favor points (they were sitting at 15).

Oh, what happened to me is on round 2 Harpy used “Swift Summoning” on Nightmist (on a “Hail Mary” play) to let her play “Heedless Lash” and then play “Oblivion” with double-3s coming up when she had her “Elder Ring” in play. Nightmist did a number on her own team, but did tons of 4 point attacks to Kaargra and (I think?) 3 gladiators on the field, letting her rack up 11 Favor points. It was painful, but successful. The Bloodsworn Coliseum favors the risky. Or lucky. Or stupid.

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My second game was almost the strategy @_Mad_Dog used, just maybe delayed a round. I decided to forgo Mistbound, as it only delays the inevitable. I used Astral Premonition the first two rounds to bury Idessa and then Tarnis. That got the Fickle Fans to award me favor, and take it away from the Bloodsworn - probably just as important. I drew Heedless Lash, then had Harpy Swiftly Summon a Ring-boosted Oblivion to wreck shop as described above. I had the points needed to win by then, so it was just having Fixer use a Grease-Monkey, Pipe-Wrench, Bloody-Knuckles Strike to knock out Kaargra’s last 4 HP. All damage before that had been directed to her, as I wasn’t worried about losing by total incapacitation.

Oh, I should mention Huginn & Muninn get the award for being lowest HP damage sponge, and also a little bit of pecking and token flipping.

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I figured this was the strat, but… Strangely, I didn’t have the Elder Ring out. Which is strange because I specifically remember having wanted to play it. c.c I guess this one’s on me!

I actually sac them early on so Harpy can get Death Caller. :B

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Had me confused. I forgot she can destroy her card with Eldritch Training. I didn’t have any use for titles this game, though. Nightmist was the star with the big burst of damage earning loads of favor. Harpy was basically utility to get stuff out sooner for the others.

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I didn’t bring the Bird Bros out, figuring they would just get slaughtered, and give more points to the Bloodsworn. Maybe that was a mistake. I might try this game again and see how it goes bringing them out.

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They were bait for Ashclaw so the heroes could keep doing damage. And they were still able to flip a token and trigger Harpy Hex even when they couldn’t peck. Once they got down to 1 HP, I finished them off myself so Soulslayer wouldn’t do it and hit everyone afterwards.

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One of the great things about this fight was that it demonstrated the utility of Calling the Flock. I used to think the healing clause was just so you could play it after they were already out and still get some use out of it. But when you’ve got S’Sdari in play, it heals them right back to full after she takes her shot! :smiley:

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Slight necro, but I just tried this one out and had such an entertaining time of it, that I’m tempted to bust out my decks of cards and recreate it as a play-by-play game report. I came so close to winning, but in the process I killed Kaargra too soon, which allowed her to Get Back In There again (probably the first time I’ve ever seen her flip twice in one game), and before I could quite get her re-killed, the Fickle Fans showed up and moved the score to 21-21. Had we gotten a Bloodsworn Judgment (neither one had shown up) or another Gladiator (at least Andolin had never turned up, and there’s probably one or two more), I have full confidence that my fully set-up Living Weapon Fixer and my Reckless, Indiscriminate Harpy would have done her in before she could gain the victory number through her own efforts. Even having to play around The Unbreakable wasn’t a big problem, given that I could have Nightmist punch herself in the face for 5 every turn.

Reloading a Liquid Nitrogen Ammo in the second and third rounds was absolutely amazing for keeping her under control; Tryragon and Idessa were totally neutered for long enough to kill them before they did any more damage. Setback, appropriately enough, was basically comic relief for this match, mostly getting Ashclawed out of dealing any damage, but the rest of the team hardly noticed his failure to pull his weight.

And the really important key to the victory I nearly had was that the Environment did basically nothing. 2x You Won’t Believe Your Eyes means effectively not having an environment at all for two turns, apart from Fixer getting to Driving Mantis his own Pipe-Wrenched incredulity into someone else’s face, and then when an Unstable Midway showed up, I shot it with an RPG Launcher (hopefully it was launching the Sentinels RPG, a nice heavy book that’s sturdy enough to collapse all that torn canvas and rickety scaffolding). Had it not been for a late-appearing Abandoned Big Tent, we wouldn’t have had a single Attraction all game.

Edit: Tried again today and managed to win this time, despite screwing up several times (You Won’t Believe Your Eyes on round 1 does nothing… unless you’re dumb enough to play Bloody Knuckles and deal 4 damage to yourself).

The Fans were just as Fickle as ever, ruling once in our favor and once in Kaargra’s, but as before the Liquid Nitrogen Rounds absolutely nerfed the gladiators twice in a row, except it was twice not in a row, because the one time I used Swift Summoning, it put the wrong ammo into Expat’s only gun! (This incident absolutely has to canonically happen in a Dark Watch story sometime after Harpy joins. “But this is better, right? More damage!” “No you idiot, I had a plan! The plan was less damage now, more damage LATER!”)

And to cap off all my goofs, I let Kaargra get The Unbreakable. But Fixer had a Tire Iron, so it was all good. Had that failed, Setback managed to become the Death-Caller by using a Whoops Sorry on Hugin & Muninn. Regardless, Harpy earned us the twentieth Favor, so as soon as Kaargra took her thumb off the scale, we instantly got our victory song. (I’ve always thought it odd that, with all the different villains who get the same music when you beat them, including Wager Master with his three different wincons, everybody gets the standard song except Kaargra, who can’t ever get that song because normal victory is impossible. Not that I mind the song, but it would have worked just as well to play this “victory in the arena” song when she wins the Favor, her normal victory music when she kills all the heroes, and the standard hero fanfare when they win favor. Just a slightly strange choice, I’m guessing it’s due to programming issues.)