@The_Justifier called it in last week’s topic regarding the 300 movie theme. It was pretty much a beat-em-down before they beat you damage race. No real opportunity for healing. Environment actually helped with setup. Won on round 4 - it went Sgt. > Train > Bio > Op.
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Welp, I was woefully unprepared for the ferocity with which this villain team tore through the heroes’ hit points, so I’ll have to try for near mint …tomorrow.
Wow. Like seriously wow.
Holy cheese balls that was close. The Arsonator hitting both sides for 3 several times did a lot to take down FT, and was basically the only thing that could touch Biomancer early on. When Wraith played Grappling Hook, I really worried about whether I was making the right choice to leave Iaijutsu in play, but Operative is by far the least dangerous Vengeance villain, so I risked it, and instead got a Mission Objective off Bunker. I couldn’t find any kit for her, with only Combat Stance as a damage source, and the shortage of bots was a nightmare for Unity (if I play this again, I will certainly take the draw-2 turn a couple times, so that I won’t end up discarding a Construction Pylon because I clearly won’t ever need two of them). At least Benchmark did okay.
I consistently focused on Fright Train and Sarge Steel, managing to take them out, and with a bit of work I could also use Volatile Parts to take out the Operative, but not long after I lost Bunker and Wraith to a Twist of Flesh. With the old couple down, the young lovebirds were at 1 each for a couple rounds, thanks to Unity miscalculating and leaving BM alive at like 4, so he could bounce back to about 12. Also somewhere around here was Benchmark using several of his extra attacks on Unity’s low-HP bots, at first to get Smoke Bombs to better protect the full heroes, then to do on Operative, and finally to kill Homunculus because I couldn’t afford to leave any damage source on the field while struggling to take its master out. I made that mistake for Sarge and the Field Inventor, which resulted in 5 extra damage plus 1 for every attack from Arsonator or Sharpshooter; focusing fire on Sarge to take out all of his minions at once did work out this time, but at quite a cost, and the game was more desperate as a result. Making the same decision for BM and his normally fairly harmless minion would probably have led to a game over, since neither of the surviving heroes could be spared.
A particular point of interest, right after the team half-wipe, was Benchmark having to use Ally Matrix (probably the first time I’ve ever used that card, since I kept getting a glitch where out-of-turn powers wouldn’t work for me), so that Unity could play Champion Bot after her turn, for no other reason than to keep Fright Train’s incap from downing a real hero. Luckily, this worked (the glitch is either fixed or it only shows up in longer games), and now that I had two incapped heroes who both allowed Unity to play a card outright, it was easy enough to set up a Powered Shock Wave and some Raptor Bot action to shred Biomancer most of the way. Meanwhile, two of Benchmark’s turns had involved combining the Inferno Missile Pod with the Software where you draw 2 and discard 2, plus playing a Software to trigger the card which deals 2 cold to two targets, and grants an extra power to double dip on Secondary Cannon. That let me shoot 4 micro-missiles both times, and the second such barrage left Biomancer at -2.
So it was a win, but just barely. Hm, sounds familiar somehow…
That was rough! I swear I made a single misplay my first time through, and yet that seemed to be enough to spell doom by the end.
This feels like one you need very specific plays to beat, though there are assuredly strategies I didn’t think of. Near Mint, not bad otherwise.
I didn’t really have a strategy, unless you count leaving Arsonist alive to burn down seven of the melee’s eight participants…
Opposite thought here. Arsonator just does too much damage, especially with Field Inventor, but can’t burn SS and team. And bots can’t really survive that, so the fiery dude was public enemy numero uno! Then Inventor and Steel himself, so he didn’t get another +5 damage boost from discarding villain cards! 
I remember playing Trust Fund first turn since Wraith didn’t start with much good - Mega Computer is junk in Freedom Tower. That got me Razor Ordnance on the environment turn, along with equipment for the other heroes. Unity definitely skipped at least one turn with no bots in hand, but finally dropped a Construction Pylon and had two raptors, a platform, and cryo. That spelled the end of Fright Train. Wraith finally just threw all her gear at Biomancer and took him from 8 to zero in one turn. Then the Operative was picking off bots and getting burned by Unity each time until she went down. As you can see, she nearly took Wraith with her!
Hm. Philosophical question for everyone. If you know what a shuffled and supposedly random deck is going to play, is it “cheating” to play around such knowledge?
Okay, that’s the second time today I’ve seen “post deleted by author” replacing someone’s post. Is this some new kind of technical hiccup the forum is having?
Well, several attempts later, using a variety of strategies, I managed to come out on top. A first round in which the baddies take all the heroes into the teens, while the heroes are lucky to get one villain that low, is just brutal, and it doesn’t get easier from there.
Bunker’s Omni Cannon took out Sgt Steel first, after an attempt targeting Fright Train ended badly. FT was next to fall, but not before Biomancer’s things brought down Unity. The Operative fell to the Omni Cannon as well, leaving nasty old Biomancer - Wraith’s Inventory Barrage helped get him down to his last hit point, and when he tried to attack Benchmark, the Countermeasures finished him off!
I made a few boneheaded moves in this game, and I imagine I’ll try again to see if I can improve on my performance - it’s definitely a challenging one!
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I can’t speak for the first instance, but I retracted a post I had only half written before fat-fingering the ‘reply’ button.
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Eh, if it’s a new one where I have a shot at Mint I try not to be spoiled going in. And I try to keep my answers vague enough that someone who’s not actively seeking help won’t stumble across it and gain future knowledge.
If it’s an old/insanely hard challenge, then by all means “cheat” to your heart’s content!
Holy crow.
This looks close, but it’s actually a whole lot closer. The final turn of the game did not belong to any heroes, it belonged to Biomancer, and he happened to be at 2 HP and draw a card that forced him to attack all players. All players happened to include Benchmark, who had counter-measures up, and Biomancer self-destructed.
Unfortunately only a Near Mint, because I misclicked in the mid-game and Bunker shot Sergeant Steel instead of Arsonator, allowing Arsonator to blow up Unity’s entire line of bots and take Bunker out. I decided to go back and fix that in the hopes of winning, which I did.
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It never even occurred to me to try Omni-cannon, even though this party has basically no destruction. Wow do I feel dumb now. Oh well, Grenade Launcher worked out pretty well for me.
If the first time was one of my posts in the QotD thread, no, it’s no hiccup, I was just composing today’s QotD last night and accidentally posted it.
So did both of you manually type the exact same phrase, or is it something the system puts in when you click the trash icon?
It’s what the site generates by default when you choose to delete a post.
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Assuming you see it before a Mod does… 
(If it was a mistake, like these were, we try to get rid of them.)
I had a really epic game. I made a number of mistakes but somehow I still got the Mint.
I chose ammo drop in the beginning. I was a little worried I was making the wrong decision because I thought about helping Arsenator kill the fleshchildren, and then he went and killed them off anyway. 
I left Arsenator alive because he was helping a lot with Biomancer and Fright Train. I then hit Fright Train with one omni-cannon blast and then sacrificed the cannon to help Unity because I didn’t think things through by the time I got to Unity’s turn. 
Mission Control kept putting Benchmark’s cards in play, triggering cooling systems and doing a ton of damage to Fright Train. Immediately after I took out Fright Train, Sergeant Steel took out Bunker. Steel was really scary, so I then focused him down. At this point, all of my heroes were at 1 or 2 hp. I grapple hooked Iaido Practioner because robots, and manipulated the Operative into self destructing due to countermeasures. Biomancer then finished off Benchmark.
This left me with a max health Biomancer, fleshchild and Entry Point vs a 1 hp Wraith and a 1 hp Unity. I got Mega Computer up to protect me from the cyrochamber (which never came up) and discarded Wraith’s hand to remove Entry Point. I then played a DR game with Biomancer. I combined Bunker’s incap DR, stun bolt, stealth, wraith bot, and smoke bombs to survive 3 turns, long enough for Unity to build up an army of bots and defeat Biomancer.
That was amazing.
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Are you indeed the same El Nate who has been writing to the Letters page? If so, I’m really surprised you haven’t been on the forum before. Either way, welcome, and keep the game reports coming! I love how we all seem to end up trying different things and getting wildly divergent results.
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Welcome to the forums, El Nate! 
That is quite the ending!
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