#Greater than Games

[liquidatedbnuuy]

I dunno if anyone here is into Sentinel Comics but I drew Setback.

He's my favorite hero and totally feels like he'd be working in a small town and gets cookies from the local grandma - instead of working in a city owned by a giant crime organization and commonly fighting a misery demon god and it's cult.

Anyway I wanna draw one of the other characters. Should I draw NightMist (fun to draw) or Omnitron X (odd to draw) next?

[tirelessdynamo]

Teaching friends to play Spirit Island with Horizons

[thryth-gaming]

Sentinels of the Multiverse Definitive Edition: Spite

Okay…. so post-game report.

Spite in the prior edition is a fight I tend not to like running because it tends to be a long, drawn out slog. So I've held off on trying him in the new edition even though they've worked hard to clean up a lot of decks.

This was the team I took on this fight:

And I some what unwisely took them to Rook City

Anyway… this time, the game took me four rounds… but admittedly… I got lucky.

Spite got one round of damage off (because villains always take first turn) and then he was unable to deal damage for the next two rounds because Alpha kept him Hamstrung (darn pesky reporters turning out to be werewolves) and peeked at his plans (cards).

Expat went right into dealing the hurt out by power of gun (dang French-Canadian gun-enthusiasts)

Wraith used the clues Alpha dug up to cancel some of his plans and started digging into her utility belt right away for some throwing razors and targetting computers. (dang billionaire vigilantes)

Setback's bad luck kept feeding Expat ammo and guns, getting attention directed at him, and upseting some of Spite's ongoing set-up (dang supportive boyfriends who are probability vortices)

And that left Mr. Fixer to get all zen and martial arts up with his Hoist Chain. (dang old man martial artists mechanics)

Rook City tried a couple of smear campaigns, but we kept that under control, though Fixer had bop a racketeer upside the head just before we got the serial killer under control by power of werewolf, gun, throwing knives, luck, and martial arts.

Okay basic notes here.

The three biggest changes to Spite:

His enhancement drugs are no longer indestructible.

Bystanders are no longer sent to a safe haven.

His flip-side is no longer a permanent change.

So, let's talk about Bystanders first.

There are three varieties as shown above, two copies of each. Now, when they take damage, you can redirect that damage to a hero. But, as long as they remain in play, they also give the heroes a benefit. This can be healing, peeking ahead at a deck, or drawing a card.

Spite's end phase has him dealing damage to the Lowest HP target, meaning the Lost Child is generally going to be the one in the most danger at any given time. But this did immediately put me in a nervous mind because I foresaw soaking up a lot of damage to keep the bystanders protected.

The drugs now being destructible less extreme but significant. Spite's drug cards being indestructible was one of the most fun draining aspects of the old villain deck, along with how incredibly difficult it is to protect Bystanders from being turned into a bloody smear.

Now, it's still harrowing (well, my initial reaction was this, but you'll see why this particular game I didn't have much issue later) because you're draining your life to keep Bystanders alive when Spite is capable of dishing out a large amount of damage. But it feels a bit more like you being in a bad spot and having to make choices rather than just having the rug constantly pulled from under you.

But the drugs often just make it next to impossible to do anything... at all. You feel constantly paralyzed and unable to do anything about them.

The next thing is Spite's flip-side:

In the prior edition, once Spite flipped, that was it. He stopped playing cards. instead just dealing damage when he would otherwise do so. And there was no way to flip him back.

Now, he does increased damage, but there is a built in countdown based on how many tokens he built up on his other form. The minimum is 3 tokens, which is when he flips, but it's possible for him to play a card that adds tokens to him. In my game, he had 8 tokens when he flipped.

This has both gameplay and thematic benefits in that there is now a strategy to the idea of whether or not you want to keep Spite here or push him quicker back to his Slasher side and this also represents his body burning through the effects of his enhancement drugs.

Also note that the drugs themselves cause him to burn through his tokens faster, which feeds in again to the question of whether you want a brief bit of pain that you think you can weather or else a prolonged, but less dangerous period due to the choice of leaving the drugs in play or destroying them right away.

Now, let's move on to the team I chose.

In first position, I chose werewolf reporter Tabitha Taft, aka Alpha. I chose the reporter variant of the character specifically for her power. The base version of Alpha is more what you'd expect from a werewolf: dealing damage and getting more wolfy. (see below)

Instead, I wanted the ability to look at Spite's deck and see what he was going to do, and maybe determine some ordering. I didn't end up using this power for that as much as I wanted, either because of opportunity (you need to bury an Aspect to do it) or need, but I did still find it useful.

This was also a BIG risk, because when I chose this character, I did not understand how Bystanders worked... namely that they are now targets with low HP. And given how Tabitha's Aspects work, it was possible that she'd end up targeting the Bystanders herself and doing more damage to my team.

As you can see, as soon as Alpha has 3 Aspects in play, she starts targeting the lowest HP character on the field. Fortunately, by the time this happened, Spite was on 1 HP and thus WAS the target.

As it turns out, I drew Full Moon first round. As a Suddenly! card that immediately played whether I wanted it to or not. This brought Lupine Senses out giving her another tool to watch Spite's deck and control it. One that didn't require me to use either a power or card play.

So, Tabitha was doing the job I took her for, which was spying out Spite's plans so I could cut them off. However, it turns out the thing that really turned my luck in this game was the two copies of Hamstring I drew in her starting hand.

This allowed me to RUIN Spite for two whole rounds during which time I was able to set up and dealing damage.

He could not deal damage, so he could not even threaten Bystanders, much less damage my team.

This brings us to the next member of the team.

Expat is one of the decks that has seen a lot of redesign. In the prior edition, she is still one of my favorite characters, but her deck is a bit sluggish and prone to stalling. Not so much anymore. I've played her deck a couple of times now and she moves quite well. She also now has a lot of team-lead support card shenanigans going on.

Granted, I didn't use her for support in this game. I used her for gun, mostly shotgun, as it came into her hand by the end of the first round (more on that later). But I also used a bit of Assault Rifle since it now gives the ability to give someone else a card draw.

By the end of the game I did have all her guns in play. (Setback's doing) I didn't use Pride and Prejudice (if I had a global damage bonus to all heroes I would have as that global would have applied twice then) because in the situation it was doing the same as the shotgun. I didn't use the Modified SMG because it would have targeted the Bystanders and that was counter productive. I DID use the Assault Rifle because of the "up to 3 targets" language meaning I didn't have to chose more and it gave an ally a card draw.

I kept her in Ammo pretty constantly. This was both due to her own cards and (yes) Setback. (Supportive boyfriend is supportive)

She did the vast majority of my damage (as a note, I did early on forget base Spite had damage reduction, so at some point I healed him for 10 due to some of my people using irreducible damage.)

This brings us to the next team member.

I went with Detective Wraith. Basic Wraith would still be very useful for protecting Bystanders from plinking damage, but I specifically had a plan for using Alpha to look at Spite's upcoming card and then use Wraith to remove cards I didn't like.

As it turns out, once Lupine Senses came out, Alpha was able to handle both sides of that plan without even using her Power, but it was nice to have the option. Wraith has also gotten an update, but her function in this game played within the lines of her past edition's playstyle. Or rather, one of her playstyles.

Wraith is character who can serve many roles. In this case, I used her for a mix of deck control (she did get used that in the first round) and damage dealing since both her Razor Ordanance and Targeting Computer hit the game early.

Though I did benefit from three changed cards:

Utility Belt - has been improved from just granting an extra Power use to also giving a power to deck-dive or extra card play.

Grappling Hook - has been shifted from it's second half being "may draw a card" to "may draw 1 card or play 1 card". Some might note the first half now reads as "Destroy Environment or Ongoing" but Environment cards now have ongoing as a tag so it can still be used to remove troublesome environment cards, more on that later.

Smoke bombs - changed from a redirect damage to just blanket causing Heroes to take less damage while also improving Wraith's damage... but it now only lasts a single round.

Still, like Expat, she was mostly on dealing lots of damage since she got her big weapon and targeting computer out.

And that comes to the next character, Expat's beau, the golden retriever dude of this set:

Setback is a bit of an airhead with massively good intentions and a loveable personality. He has some moderately superhuman physicality, but his only innate power is the absurd effect he has on probability. His luck is never mild, it is either extremely bad or extremely good. And this is how he got his enhanced physique actually:

Loses job and has to pick up a janitor job in the meantime.

The janitor job is with an evil corp fronting for evil scientist person who sticks him in an experiment that has killed everyone so far.

He actually survives and gets properly enhanced.

Anyway, I'm going a bit into his premise and story because the game does his absurd luck very well. First note that his basic power is just play a card off the top of his deck... blind.

Allow me to show you the first card I played as a result of that.

And I absolutely pushed all three of those card plays resulting in this:

Among several other cards. And yes... I was absolutely using that to feed Expat ALL the guns and ammo. Flavor win go!

So the way his cards work is he has Unlucky and Lucky cards. The Unlucky cards have a downside and a good side. Mostly the downside keeps happening while the good side is only immediately useful. But then you can play a Lucky card which gives a benefit and then allows you to destroy up to 3 Unlucky cards for increased benefit.

I had some decent damage dealing in there, but honestly, I was mostly going with blind card plays. I even played Push Your Luck on its own deliberately once. So I didn't particularly have a plan for him. He was just feeding other people card plays and soaking up damage for them.

It was really useful and let me set up Expat very quickly as well as get things moving for other characters pretty fast.

And that brings us to the last member of this team.

Mr Fixer is another very powerful character from the original edition who can be hard to set up and can also stall or feel meh if your luck is bad. He's now been given some easier ways to search through his deck for Styles and Tools.

Depending on which Styles and Tools you set him up with, he can serve a number of roles. In my case, I was using the Hoist Chain and Alternating Tiger Claw. The Tiger Claw was just the first style I drew and never had another turn up. But the Hoist Chain was a deliberate choice and Harmony was something that Setback called up via his absurd luck.

Where as the first two rounds were about Alpha shutting Spite down entirely, round three was about Wraith and Mr. Fixer keeping his damage reduced to pretty much zero. In his last turn he got two attacks in applying a total of -2 to Spite's damage, with Wraith's smoke adding another -1 dealt to heroes for a total of -3.

He did this by a combination of his base power and the Charge one shot card.

And that's the villain and all the heroes so let's move on to the environment.

Rook City from the first edition has something of a reputation of being one of the harshest environment decks. It the past it only had two allies for the heroes and all the rest of the deck was varying degrees of nasty.

The deck now has three allies for the heroes (one of whom used to be a bystander in Spite's deck). In my game four cards came up.

Tony Taurus showed up first and helped me get rid of one of Spite's ongoings. I unfortunately lost access to him due to Setback's card plays destroying an environment card when he was the only target. Anti-Hero Sentiment then showed up after him but I was able to remove it early. Media Pressure was revealed and discarded via Lost Child's bystander benefit so never entered play and Ambitious Racketeer ended up getting backhanded by Mister Fixer when he showed up right at the end.

I've looked through Rook City's other cards a bit and yeah, it has a very bleak outlook in a lot of cases.

Overall.

Spite is no longer a slog, plays well, works thematically and gameplay.

Rook City is mostly the same with the Smear effects being a new wrinkle I only saw a hint of here.

Expat, Mister Fixer, and Setback's redesigns work very well.

Reporter Alpha digs through her deck so fast and I just got lucky with her. So extremely lucky.

Wraith still plays much the same though with some of her weaker cards tightened up.

[brinkmage]

Time for one of my favorite fictional fictional characters, Sentinel Comics' Nightmist!

[lorekeeper-backset]

One hour till Disparation, fellas!

[thrythlind]

Let's do a fourth character along the lines of the characters we've already made:

Spark Bug Rune Striker Black Sheep

Okay, that gives us the following options:

1 - Upper Class 6 - Law Enforcement 7 (1+6) - Academic

So, let's see here, with the rest of our group we have:

An alien supernatural suspected to cruel experiments. An ex-military power suit pilot with a magic-pased suit. An Thorathian/Human blend super from the far far future.

Which of those three options above are the most interesting fit into this group? I'm going to resist framing up some of the relationships here. We know that Dae's secret ID is a data analyst for the PI firm, the others are rather more vague as to what they do outside hero stuff.

I'm going to go with Upper Class here for the simple reason that of these options, it is the one that is the least common result... by a very little. Admittedly,

So, let's assign those dice:

Persuasion d8 Conviction d10

And for the Principle.... I think I'm going to go with the Principle of the Team and having the feeling that her Team is her family.

So, now we move on to Step 2 - Power Source

All right, so let's see these options:

1 - Accident 6 - Nature 7 (1+6) - Relic 8 - Powered Suit 9 (1+8) - Radiation 14 - Alien

Okay, we already had an alien in the form of Spark Bug... and Black Sheep is from a non-terrestrial species blended with human, but is an Earth native, just from far-far-future Earth. But we haven't actually taken the Alien power source... and I know that Alien specifies "not from Earth" but I've been flexible before.

Instead... what if this ties in to her Principle of the Debtor

What if her life was saved by some alien tech?

So, yeah, going for Alien.

So, I'm going to opt for things that aren't as obvious physically. At least until she uses them.

Going with Cosmic d8 Telepathy d10 Presence d8

Because we all want more cosmic empowered, supernaturally charismatic rich people. Thank God this setting is such an optimistic one.

For abilities I'm going with.

Alien Boost (Telepathy) Empower and Repair (Cosmic)

I considered Halt as a typical upper class thing and then dismissed for not wanting to play that sort of person.

Now, I don't have any d6 powers, so I have to add a d6 power somewhere. And I'm going to add say Agility d6

So now on to Step 3 - Archetype

I did reroll things that left me with fewer than 6 options, and I did so without looking at the options. It was stuff like doubles and 1,6,7 and yes, technically you only get one reroll... but it's a game and in a lot of cases people have switched to Constructed method by this point anyway.

So... options:

2 - Shadow 3 - Physical Powerhouse 5 (2+3) - Blaster 8 - Flyer 10 (2+8) - Robot/Cyborg 11 (3+8) - Sorcerer

Now, let me think what we have so far... Spark Bug is a supporty Wild Card Rune Striker is a Flyer that's split between blast and support Black Sheep is Armored and split between tank and support

As a note, I lean heavily toward support, and most options have support elements... so... yeah... I tend toward a lot of support.

I think I want this character to be less spotlight-oriented. Like she doesn't want to take the credit, she wants empower other people to do well and is fine just being unheard of. So taking Blaster, Flyer, and Sorcerer off the table for now.

But I'm not thinking traditional ninja or stalker type. So taking off Shadow too. That leaves Robot/Cyborg (which fits the life-saved by alien tech idea) or Physical Powerhouse.

And I just like the idea that she's secretly super strong and I'm going for Physical Powerhouse

Now... everything coming off Alien is d8s... so we know what Strength is going to get.

Strength d8 Speed d8 Insight d8

And for Abilities I'm going for the following:

Green Galvanize (Insight) Damage Resistant

Yellow Power Strike (Strength)

For the principle?

I think I'm going for the Tactician.

And now it's time to go to Step 4 - Personality

This gives us the options of:

5 - Sarcastic 10 - Alluring 15 - Jovial

And I think i will go for Alluring here.

Sarcastic and Jovial don't seem quite what I want, plus the idea of Alluring personality on someone with Presence as a Power is interesting.

Which brings us to Step 5 - Red Abilities

(Side note, I apparently lost connection earlier so I lost my prior draft... this does mean we'll be seeing less of my thoughts as they develop.)

I decided to focus on things that are less spotlight holding for people in the story, though of course a lot of audiences would see through that.

First, I get access to this from her psychic powers, so I attach Telepathy to this and she can now give people an extra turn… at the cost of them suffering damage.

For the second I turn to her Social Qualities and attach this ability to Insight so that she can hamper the efforts of enemies when things get down to a dangerous point.

That brings us to Step 6 - Retcon

I almost considered switching out one of her Principles, but instead, I'm giving her a third Red Ability and that is an option to carry out a feat of extreme physical strength that would be unlooked for from her.

This is an Overcome not an attack, so it is focused on clearing obstacles, rescuing bystanders, and other such things. But it also boosts her nearby allies.

Now we got to Step 7 - Health

This character's health looks a lot like the health of other characters in this group.

8 - Base +10 - Max of Status Die +10 - Max of Conviction 4 - Choosing not to roll

Once again we have a 32 health.

Oh! Hey... I can make that image smaller.... (screen cap from a smaller view)

Anyway, on to Step 8 - Final Touches

Danica Thorn's family was killed in the attack on Earth by the alien villain known as Deadline, but her own life was saved by the efforts of the heroes Sky-Scraper and Tempest, both aliens themselves. Unbeknownst to any of them, some of Sky-Scraper's nanites had assimilated the cosmic energies being wielded by Deadline and these filtered into Danica's very being and eventually she realized that she had acquired superpowers herself.

She hadn't learned well enough how to use her powers by the time of the OblivAeon event, especially as she had to work to keep hold of her inheritance against the efforts of her remaining biological family. She found herself on the receiving end of unethical practices she had never thought much about in the past. But her telepathy and other abilities gave her an edge her family didn't know about it gave her a deep conviction about her morality.

Post OblivAeon she connected with three other heroes and offered to act as their public representative and give them resources to operate with. She also attends classes at the Hall of Freedom with them, with the aid of the staff helping her keep her powers mostly secret. The public assumes she's just a rich girl doing the cool thing and buying her way into a superschool, and this is how she likes it as it puts the spotlight and credit on people she feels truly deserve it.

[whovian223]

Review - Sentinels of the Multiverse: Definitive Edition

Review - Sentinels of the Multiverse: Definitive Edition from @GTGamesLLC

One of the common words I hear to describe some games with lots of upkeep is “fussy.” That’s when there’s a bunch of stuff on the table, you’re trying to keep straight multiple different abilities and tracks and hopefully you don’t forget anything. From what I have heard, the original edition of Sentinels of the Multiverse was the picture you see in the dictionary when you look up “fussy.” I…

[bormgans]

SPIRIT ISLAND - R. Eric Reuss (2017)

SPIRIT ISLAND – R. Eric Reuss (2017)

And now for something completely different: a board game review, even though I shouldn’t use ‘completely’ – Spirit Island has both narrative and speculative elements, so it might be of interest to some of my regular readers too. I have no intention to write more about board games on this blog – for the simple reason I don’t play them enough – but I did want to write a review for this particular…

[turtleblogatlast]

Sorry if you've gone over this before but I was curious as to what you'd think it would take for Leo to finally break in front of his brothers?

We’ve actually seen Leo break his persona multiple times throughout the series! And pretty much each and every time has a common theme present: his family being in danger.

[ladytabletop]

sometimes I read a ttrpg and get caught in a loop of "wow there is a lot that's not working for me in this" + "it's so much effort to write a ttrpg, let alone publish one, who am I to criticize?" but i think criticism is fair as long as you're discerning about it! Like "this isn't a choice I would make as a designer" vs "this isn't something I would enjoy running/playing" vs "you definitely should not have written this for ethical reasons" vs "you definitely should not have written this because it mechanically does not do what you want it to do"

and all those criticisms can coexist!

[chronologically-challenged]

Everything around the Isabeau confession is so well written.

Firstly, the set up. When you're playing the game, killing the King is just a vague goal. A natural one! But other than the vague desire to hit an end point, there isn't really a strong emotional reason compelling the player forward. But Isabeau!!! Telling you he will tell you something once you beat the King!!! That!!! That is a tangible goal to lean onto especially over time as you get more and more endeared to the whole party. Even if you're not aware of it being a love confession, getting to Isabeau to hear what he has to say is still a compelling reason get to the end.

And if you're Aware of how these things go for stories like these, you may also say, "Well shit, we're not gonna get a confession until the end of the game, are we?"

Second, the interruptions. The order of the interruptions are so quietly brilliant. I can't get over it. Bonnie interrupting first is such an excellent choice. You know Bonnie!!! Bonnie has been jumping into conversations all game so far. So interrupting Isabeau doesn't seem all that out of place. Then Mirabelle interrupts next time. And you go, okay. Thats two of three.... but surely Odile won't interrupt, right? By this point, the player has seen Odile tease Isabeau multiple times about him liking Siffrin, so surely she won't interrupt... right? Right??? But she does. And despite it being obvious that she would, the player is still left in tension if she would.

The way things are set up, there's a plausible deniability each time. You don't expect the first interruption, Bonnie naturally would interrupt so Mirabelle could be surprising, and Odile interrupting feels so outside of what she'd usually do that you don't expect it.

And yet!!!! Saying all this!!! This is very tropey!!! Very time loop tropey!!! Stopping people from messing things up so you can have your moment is quintessential time loop tropes and yet!!! It doesn't feel tropey due to good characterization and story structure.

(And if you do realize that all three are going to interrupt from the beginning, you get a wave of DREAD when you realize that you're going to be here. Again and again. That you have to beat the King again and again and again... and as you watch the confession fizzle, seeing the Head Housemaiden there, despite Siffrin's happy demeanor, you can't help but feel it all about to crash down before it even happens. In that moment you have a taste of what the game is about to put you through).

Third, the family quests. I have two points here. Firstly, "yelling at your screen like it's a telenovela" is the best summary of my feelings on the stargazing scene. Even if you KNOW Isabeau isn't going to confess until the end of the game bc that's how these things go, it won't happen until the end because that's how good writing works, You Still Want It To Happen. So Badly. You want Isabeau to confess to Siffrin!!! You want that tension to release!!! But you have to watch and see that perfect confession slip away every time and it hurts to watch, especially if you do the quests multiple times. Second point is the fact you can't continue the Isabeau confessions on a family run kills me. It's so good. Like you're never going to get everything in one go no matter what you do so you have to pick and choose. And!!! That plays into Siffrin feeling like he's manipulating Isabeau!!!

Of course Siffrin isn't actually manipulating Isabeau but when you're so aware of what you're doing and how events could have played out, it's difficult not to see a situation where you changed the outcome as manipulation. Which... of course leads us to Siffrin's feelings at the end of trying to stop the interruptions...

Fourth, Isabeau stopping himself when confessing. It hurts so good. Idk just. Denying the player that payoff. Denying Siffrin that moment of confession. Because really Siffrin didn't learn the lesson needed to actually get this moment of vulnerability between the two of them. It's such a genius choice that brings that awful dread and hopelessness. And in the end, I suppose all five of them stop the confession from happening because from that point onward, Siffrin interrupts the confession every time. Siffrin doing everything they can to get what they want only to accept that they're never going to get it. Never CAN get this because he doesn't deserve it.

Finally, bad touch. People have talked about bad touch enough, so I dont need to go too far with it. I will say I appreciate how much it doubles down on subverting the "romancing someone in a time loop" narrative. These loops while in some ways made Siffrin more perceptive, they're also PAINFUL. They mess with his head, lean towards making worse and worse decisions, and a large part of that is his role in his family's lives. Especially with Isabeau!!! So yeah. Of course the surprise kiss doesn't go well. Especially with the context that Isabeau doesn't think Siffrin wants to be touched let alone kissed? It ends in disaster just like most of the sidequests do.

In general, the ongoing Isabeau plot is very well implemented. The seeds for it are planted immediately, and it takes a lot of commitment to see all the parts of it. As a result, unless you try to do a ton of runs in act 3 immediately just to get the confession, it's a very slow burn part of the story, doing well to parallel Siffrin's mental state and the growing hopelessness in the loops. It grounds the story in a tangible goal from the beginning and in many ways, once you get to the end of it, get to bad touch, you're left bereft. Something... lost after you spent so much time being aware of Isabeau. That tangible feeling that you're slowly running out of things to do, of ways to spend these two days.

(And of course, then you have act 6 confession, and the pure relief, the joy in finally having the confession after it being set up from act 1. Siffrin doesn't need to reciprocate for it to have its impact. Something has CHANGED they have changed. And finally FINALLY after all this time, the moment can happen. And it's beautiful).

[transearthmover]

ultrakill drives me crazy cuz it’s like . funky fps with great music and design and then you get angel who destroys the societal control for His freedom to be who he is and accepts all of himself . robots who were might to tend and became a fighter . creatures who want nothing but freedom , to feel the sun they are deserving to feel its warmth the closest thing they can get to gods light . there’s beings who want to change , who want to escape the layer trapped , to exist . there’s beings that want their fucking mothers , they are someone’s Child and they’re literally crying in texts written for everyone and no one . there are beautiful things in the layers of hell that are destroyed by fire and war , and regardless of the destruction they still have heart and love and Wants . Hell is alive and it has a soul .

[tirelessdynamo]

Sentinel Comics post based on this week's Letter's Page

You know I almost never just think about the Southwest Sentinels.... which is a shame because every time we get a story of theirs I'm roughly reminded how much I love them, and how every one of their stories is fabulous and I should think about them more.

Anyways Writhe was great in this episode/ issue and D-grade is a cool villain

[thryth-gaming]

Apex vs Alpha and the Parental Units

I believe I've mentioned this game before on this blog, I know I've mentioned the RPG based on it, but just in case. Here's a summary.

Sentinels of the Multiverse is a co-op/solo card game where you pit 3-5 superheroes against a particular villain deck.

Each character has their own themed deck with a different gimmick, as do major locations in the world setting. And decks are very well designed such that their deck very well represents their themes and narratives. Within the last 5 years a new edition of the game has streamlined mechanics, adjusted some decks that were a little clutzy in the past, and introduced some new characters.

In this case I decided I wanted to try out one of the new villains from the Rook City Renegades expansion: Apex.

Apex is a werewolf lord, a self-styled king, and he seeks to create a world where werewolves dominate the world and are free to hunt whoever they choose.

His deck focuses around getting werewolf followers into play who have high hit point totals. Typically follower cards have around 3 to 8 HP with some occasionally having as high as 14 or 15. It is rare to see follower HP totals higher than that. With an intergalactic battleship in one deck having around 25.

There are 6 sub-villains in Apex's deck, one of them has 13 HP (she's a vampire) the other 5 range between 21 and 25 HP. And they suffer less damage from enemies that have less hit points than they do. Most of his cards summon werewolves from his deck, empower his werewolves, or give him or other werewolves attacks.

As villains go, Apex's HP is on the low side, only Baron Blade shows at less max Health at 40, and that's deceptive since when you get Blade to 0 the first time, his card flips and he gains 30 more HP. But Apex also has a lot of healing cards in his deck and if he can keep his health above the heroes, is harder to damage.

That said, HP in this game is more narrative than physical health. With Spite, it represents the difficulty of tracking him down and stopping his serial killing rather than a full out battle. With Baron Blade, his first 40 HP represent destroying his doomsday machine and the next 30 represents him in his power armor. So on and so forth.

And he puts out a lot of damage.

When I first scanned his cards, I was a bit intimidated to be honest, but then again, I have an understanding how to build a team to cover each other's weaknesses. Apex has a chance of overwhelming a player with his aggressive styles, and there are a few twists in his deck, but his basic mode is easily handled by a player familiar with the game. Unless luck is really against them.

Now, let's get on to the team.

First up is Tabitha Taft, aka Alpha.

She is a new hero introduced into this edition and is a, obviously, a werewolf. Her deck focuses around putting her six "Aspects" into play to access pieces of her lycanthropic nature without going full wolf and hurting people she doesn't want to hurt.

As you can see, each of her Aspects gives her abilities or bonuses that let her do things without spending one of her normal card plays or power uses, but comes at a risk. When she has 3 or more aspects in play, she will attack whoever on the board has the least HP once for each Aspect.

This can get dangerous especially when there are effects boosting the damage of heroes. Also, she gets affected by Apex's cards that boost the damage of werewolves because she has the tag Werewolf. So, usually when I've played her, I tried to keep the number of aspects in play low, only taking a risk when I was confident of being able to engineer villains having the lowest HP on the board.

But in this case... I had a plan... and it worked gloriously.

I've previously played both her base version and her "Reporter Alpha" version, which was when I was playing her more for scrying and deck control than for damage. In this case, I wanted to focus on her basic version since I think the Reporter version comes from early in her career when her lycanthropy was first starting to show itself.

As a note, the flip side of each hero shows their defeated side. A defeated hero doesn't get their full turn but instead gets a choice out of three options that they can do to help the team.

The above are Tabitha's flip sides for her base and reporter version and part of why I'm showing you this is because the flip side of her base version shows Apex. See, turns out most werewolves are cursed and sterile... Tabitha is the first werewolf to ever be born.

In fact there is a quote on one of Apex's cards that has Nightmist (we'll see her later) talking to Alpha about this:

"They act as though they are far greater than humanity when truly, they exist as a corruption. You, however, are something different."

So, Tabitha, as a natural born werewolf, is key to Apex's plans for world domination. I'm not sure, but I think it's also implied that Apex may be her father (see "A Horrible Truth" as the title of the defeat side of her base form) somehow. Apex has alliances with vampires and other mages so he may have engineered her birth somehow.

So, this is a personal fight for Alpha. A fight for her independence and escaping the oppression of a pack of hyper-violent predators who would rather give-in to their curse than transcend it. This is not her first rodeo, she took the name "Alpha" as her hero name because she fought to become the Alpha of her old pack and then said she was done with the nonsense and walked away from it. Basically exposing the whole artificial hyper-violence that the alpha concept was by just not caring save wanting to be done with it.

However, Apex and his group are far stronger than her prior pack.

And now the Parental Units

You may be wondering why I called this "Alpha and the Parental Units" because the rest of her team are:

Nightmist, premier sorceress who transcended her own curse to become a creature of magic.

Legacy, basically the good dad of the superhero community.

Mister Fixer, old gruff martial artist and sifu who's been around the supernatural block a few times.

Expatriette, the tactical team leader of Dark Watch, take Nick Fury and the Punisher, mix them up as a Magneto's daughter.

And let's get to those characters.

This is the last character that's going to be shown two versions of themselves.

This is Nightmist, at one time she was a private investigator, the grand-daughter of Joe Diamond (the character in the Arkham Horror board games). While her father apparently tried to keep her away from such things, the back of her cards implies she was Joe's sidekick for a while. Also a line on one of the Relics in her Estate's deck (an environment not being played here) says he gave her his collected journal of monsters for her to continue the fight.

In any case, she at some point was investigating a cult or infiltrating a cult, I'm unsure of which, and came across an arcane tome that blasted her with a terrible curse. In essence, she became infused with the essence of the Mists of R'lyeh, yeah Cthulhu stuff. She started to learn sorcery to deal with her curse and was initially a cursed human woman able to resolve into mist form (that's her base form on the left).

Later on, she was exposed to a drug invented by an evil scientist (Baron Blade) to remove superpowers from people and it at least suppressed her curse, leaving her a basic human again. She began to find that she was no longer happy as a human being, it didn't feel like her true self anymore. And then a threat came and the magic she was capable of without the curse wasn't enough, so she retreated into a demiplane to meditate for what was to her centuries though little more than a week passed in the outside world. When she returned, she was no longer a cursed human but a creature of arcane and eldritch nature.

As regards Nightmist, I already noted there's a quote of her telling Alpha that she's different from other werewolves. Initially she advised Alpha to get the curse lifted, though follows it up by asking why she holds to it. So eventually it feels like Nightmist realized Alpha is a bit like her, someone who is more naturally not human.

And also, Alpha's curse being her nature rather than a corruption of her nature the way normal lycanthropy is in this setting.

Nightmist has acted as the mentor to a former villain trying to become a hero (the Villain Matriarch who later becomes the Hero Harpy) and find control over her chaotic magic and the artifact bound to her and manipulated her into her villainous behavior as a teen.

Now, Nightmist is a deck that is fueled by discard cards. All of her spells and many of her powers require Nightmist to discard cards in order to accomplish things or control her magic. So there are a few cards that give her the opportunity to draw more cards to make sure her hand is filled. Normally, Nightmist will empty and reshuffle her deck fairly quickly. In a long game, it can happen multiple times. Nightmist's base version has an innate power that involves drawing cards to help deal with this.

Mentor Nightmist does not have card draw innately.

This heavily effects her ability to keep her hand filled and thus limits the options she has on her turn or to react to incoming issues.

However, what Mentor Nightmist does give me is the ability to safely unleash Alpha. Because when Nightmist uses her innate power she chooses a hero and until the start of Nightmist's next turn, any time that hero does damage, Nightmist decides whether to give it +1 or -3. I've used this for Nightmist's own spells as she has some spells that hit her or her allies for damage. But in this case, it neatly covers Alpha's 1 melee damage on each Aspect attack... heck it even covers that if there's effects boosting Alpha's damage twice.

What this means is that while Alpha is attacking who I want her to attack, we can make that attack stronger. When Alpha attacks someone else, we can reduce the damage to 0 in most cases. I tend to view this as Nightmist teaching control techniques to the other heroes or using them herself. As someone familiar with dangerous powers and how to make sure they are safely controlled.

So, far and away from my normal worry about having too many Aspects. Now I can just get all the Aspects I want.

Legacy is a very famous and beloved American superhero. He has the classic blonde-hair, square jaw Midwestern charm going on that calls back to comics in the Golden and Silver Age. A blend of Captain America and Superman. He has a very interesting power origin.

See, way back in the Revolutionary War, one of his ancestors worked with Paul Revere and developed an uncanny sense for when danger was coming. According to the in-game lore, this person was the man who lit the lanterns that set Paul Revere on his ride. Ever since then, the first child of each new generation would gain a new power... and the power of their predecessors. So each new Legacy was stronger than the last in some ways. (or at least had more versatility).

According to the lore podcasts by the creators this is the list of powers:

Joseph Parsons - Revolutionary War - Danger Sense

Paul Parsons - War of 1812 - Very Athletic. Not superhumanly so, but very Peak Humanity Athletic

Paul Parsons II - No war, Lucky Paul - Superhuman fast. Not Tachyon level but still faster than any human CAN run.

Paul Parsons III - Mexican American War - Superhuman strength, like 'Lift and throw carriages/cars'

Paul Parsons IV - Civil War - Single Attack Negation (can take a cannonball to the chest, but it has to cooldown)

Paul Parsons V - Spanish-American War (Also was the first Parsons to move to Chicago) - Vitality. VERY high-grade general stamina. Walks off sickness, ages slower, heals faster.

Paul Parsons VI - Legacy I - World War I - Flight

Paul Parsons VII - Legacy II - World War II and Korean War - Super Eyesight

Paul Parsons VIII - Legacy III/Heritage - No War until OblivAeon - Bulletproof skin. Unlike PP4, he can tank a lot of weaker attacks with no cooldown

Pauline Felicia Parsons - Beacon/Legacy IV - LASER EYES

This game has insanely deep lore... it's all unnecessary to playing and loving the game, but man... the depths the devs went to in detailing not only the in-game universe but also a fictitious publication history for the comics is amazing. Legacy is very much a call-back to the uber-patriotic, sometimes outright propagandist age of comics. Unlike characters like Omni-Man or Homelander, however, Paul is more in the line of Superman and Captain America as I said in that he represents a more hopeful ideal of what we wish America could be rather than what it is in truth.

It is refreshing to see a "Superman-clone" that isn't a deconstructed asshole. (though there is an evil Legacy from an alternate timeline that exists in the old edition as a villain and given the next expansion deals with the multiverse, I'm expecting we'll see him again) Though the issue of an idealistic USA existing on Indigneous land is troublesome. I need to ask around and see if there's some lore on this. The devs are usually self-aware on these issues so I wonder if this is a blind spot or if I'm just missing something here.

Anyway, enough of me addressing the cognitive dissonance here, and back to the game.

So, Legacy's deck does have some impressive damage cards in it, but it also has a lot of support abilities. His innate power increases the damage of his allies and he has a card that essentially doubles that effect. He also has ways to heal allies, give card draw, give card plays, and also he has quite a few ways to tank damage. Which was my original plan for him here. However, while I got some of his tanking cards in hand (and even played one) the support cards were almost always the best play at hand in this game.

Okay, so here's where we get back into the insane amount of in-universe Lore. In the fictitious publication history, he came out of the 60s and 70s and a mixture of Blaxploitation and Kung-fu stuff (and apparently vampires too) and started as a side character that began to get increasingly popular and they even talk about how he started to get more detailed in mid-70s around "the time comics started to get better". As the Blaxpoitation craze started to end he just... stopped being popular and people forgot him.

Move forward a few decades in the 90s (still fictitious publication history) when they introduce a villainous martial artist known as The Operative, they introduce an auto-mechanic called "Slim" as her original mentor. And this "Slim" is the original "Black Fist". And now he comes out of retirement as "Mister Fixer" using his tools as weapons. Now that he's in the hands of writers ready to do some interesting stories beyond "I know Kung-fu" and start to get into his position as a mentor who has seen a lot of tragedy through his life and knows about hubris. (and apparently he's blind... I just learned that.)

Yeah, the completely optional lore of this fun co-op/solo card game includes lots of commentary on the highs and lows of comic book history.

See the podcast episode here:

Anyway, Fixer's deck is mostly about pairing a Tool and a Style to modify his attacks. These do things like change the targets he gets or add an extra effect when he does damage, etc. He has a lot of ways to switch out his cards, attack multiple times, switch styles between attacks, and so on. I found it very easy to add cards into his hand (this game does NOT have a maximum hand size. I have had games where my deck and discard had 0 cards in them on some characters) so he always has a lot of options of what to do in a game.

In this game, I was trying to handle multiple high-HP followers, so after finding the Jack Handle I stuck to that and only switched styles once... though I was considering switching to a third style near the end.

Also, I was today year's old when I realized "Mister Fixer" acronym's to MF... as in obvious Samuel L Jackson quote. Yup, Fits.

Expatriette is one of my gals (the other two main ones being Fanatic and Harpy). So, take The Punisher, Deadshot, and Nick Fury, roll them up into a bundle shaped like a Canadian woman whose mother is basically "what if Magneto was actually evil and not just very rightfully angry".

That's Expatriette.

She starts out as a hired killer and apparently was contracted by villains to kill Mister Fixer. However, she seems to quickly switch over to the good guy side and is even one of Mister Fixer's teammates on Dark Watch alongside Nightmist, her boyfriend Setback (a golden retriever man with weird luck), and Nightmist's apprentice, The Harpy.

(To be honest I haven't listened to a lot of the lore podcasts. I love the bits I learn from fandom pages, but also, the game is just fun, you know? And the podcast competes with Kikoskia, Storyteller Squad, Monster's Playbook, Knights of the Night, AltHaven, The Writer's Room, Insym, and Critical Role.)

Her deck in the original edition was kinda meh. It gave you guns, lots of guns, but it was a bit slow to get everything into play and get her going. And in general she was a one-trick pony. She had some control options and the ability to remove Ongoing effects, but mostly she shot things.

The new version of her is so... so much more versatile and also builds much smoother. Giving her innate power the ability to do damage and play an item was amazing. And the Ammo is far more fluid to use (you used to have to attach it to specific guns each of which could have a single ammo attached, except shotgun, which could have two).

I do miss Pride and Prejudice being separate cards though... they were designed to make a single picture when you set them next to each other (which unfortunately order them as "Prejudice" and "Pride", which was irksome). But putting them as a single card just works better.

However, the biggest change that Expat got was that she got a lot of team support cards. She now has a lot of options to give other players actions outside of their turn and it is amazing. She's always been described as a tactical genius but her deck in the original edition never reflected that, only show casing her shooting skills.

The above guns, ammo, and other cards are ones that got played in this game. If the game hadn't ended when it did, I would have played a card another such card called "Comprehensive Plan"

Dark Watch doesn't have a leader per se. They sort of just go with things. Eldritch stuff they turn to Nightmist, martial arts and weird supernatural stuff they turn to Mister Fixer, everything else and general battle plans they turn to Expat. Harpy and Setback are the least leadery of the five.

So, this is the environment deck I went with. Megalopolis which is the typical shining idealistic "what we wish reality was" city like Metropolis from DC comics. Now, it may have made more sense to choose Rook City given that every character I put on the team is a Rook City resident except for Legacy. Heck, Nightmist, Mister Fixer, and Expatriette are three members of the signature Rook City supergroup: Dark Watch. But I liked the idea of werewolves fighting it out on the streets of the shining city rather than the grim one where supernatural nonsense usually happens. Also, this makes Legacy's presence more probable.

What I figure is that Alpha was in town for some reporter thing as Apex tracked her down. They came through Rook City which picked up the attention of Dark Watch, though Harpy and Setback were unavailable for some reason. Then when the first attack happened, Legacy was on hand and the brawl started.

Environments in this game are on nobody's side. Some are more friendly to villains, some are more friendly to heroes, most are rather neutral and mess with everybody. Megalopolis features a lot of citizens in peril, making it mostly a headache for the players. That said, there are a couple of cards that help heroes out and as this is the shiny "we wish it were so" city, this includes "Police Back-up" (the corrupt cops are all in Rook City, don't you know?). There's also a lawyer friend. But mostly, the city makes it hard for players to use their powers or gives them a count down to worry about.

The environment is the last deck to play in any round which is why it is the last deck I talked about. (and also, you now know how long this game lasted)

So, let's get on to the actual game.

Round One - (werewolf) FIGHT!

Apex

Apex started out with three werewolves in play:

Timber - attacks multiple of the highest HP

Rowan - attacks the lowest HP

Flint - attacks the highest HP

He didn't need to heal and there was no werewolf with more HP than him, so he didn't flip. He moves to play phase and plays The Pack Hungers. This gives all werewolves more damage and causes them to suffer toxic damage.

They're HUNGRY!

At the start of his next round it would heal him and check to see if any werewolves were low on health and destroy those. I guess the implication is they eat their own if that person is weak.

Then all the werewolves attack, dealing damage across the board. Apex hits the highest HP hero and then all werewolves. Timber, Rowan, and Flint do their attacks after him. Then Pack Hungers hits all werewolves including Apex.

Nightmist

Nightmist is at 18 HP out of 28... she got hit pretty hard.

She plays Call Forth to summon the Amulet of the Elder Gods which she immediately uses to redirect the infernal damage from Call Forth away from her to strike Rowan because enemies that target the lowest HP targets are scary and can wear down vulnerable heroes fast.

She then uses her Magical Mentor power to boost Alpha and Draws Master of Magic... which is the other main set-up card I look for when playing Nightmist.

Alpha

Alpha is at 26 of 32 HP.

She plays Fatal Feast which discovers Insatiable Hunger. I didn't note it down, but I think the target was Rowan (again, villains that stalk low HP heroes are scary)

Alpha then uses her Prowl power to discover another aspect and gets Lupine Senses. Neither Insatiable Hunger nor Lupine Senses were may first choice in this case, but in retrospect they probably should have been. They worked out pretty well.

She draws Hamstring, which is what I call a "Shut Down" card because you can use it to shut down the Villain partially for a round.

At her end phase she only has 2 Aspects, so no attacks happen.

Mister Fixer

Mister Fixer is at 27 HP out of 29

He plays Zen Maintenance to collect Hoist Chain and Harmony.

Note on the difference between "Collect", "Discover", "Salvage", and "Summon".

Collect means you can name a particular card of the named type and put it in your hand.

Discover means you reveal cards off the top of the deck until you find the number the card asks for and then you put them into play.

Salvage means look through the trash and grab a card of the desired type to put in your hand.

Summon means you name a particular card of the named type and put it directly into play.

Mister Fixer has some Discover, but he has a lot more Collect and Salvage, giving him more control. He has options in his hand rather than depending on the random chance of Discover.

I was thinking I might need the Hoist Chain's ability to reduce the damage output of villains hit by it. I then used the card play granted by Zen to play The Manifold Path and that brought out the Jack Handle (perfect for this situation and I immediately realized that) and Alternating Tiger Claw, also excellent for this situation given it made his damage irreducible which got around Apex's protection.

Then I used his Strike power which he used to attack Apex, Timber, Rowan, and Flint. Usually he'd only get one attack, but Jack Handle let him hit up to five targets and there were only four.

Then he draws Dual Crowbars.

Expatriette

Expat is at 23 of 28 HP. She got hit pretty hard as well.

She plays Arsenal Access which discovers her Modified SMG and some Liquid Nitrogen Ammo. She then draws another Arsenal Access and plays her Double-Barreled Shotgun off that card.

She shotguns Rowan and decides not to use ammo right now. Again, stalker enemies are scary.

Then she draws hollow point

Legacy

Legacy is at 22 out of 32 HP. He got hit as hard as Nightmist.

Legacy plays Bolster Allies which gives everybody a card draw including himself.

Legacy draws the Ol' One Two

Nightmist draws Essence Transfer

Alpha draws Silver Bindings

Mister Fixer draws Overdrive

Expatriette draws Backup Plan

He then gives Nightmist a card play. Nightmist chooses to play Starshield Invocation. The discarded card shows a "4" on the Infernal number. Her Amulet of the Elder Gods upgrades that to 5. And now all damage to heroes is reduced by 5 until Nightmist's turn.

Legacy then uses his Galvanize power to boost Hero damage.

He draws Dauntless Durability, one of his tanker powers.

Megalopolis

Plays "Persistent Paparazzi" meaning heroes will now take 1 fixed damage whenever they use a power. "Fixed" means it can neither be increased or reduced, though it is still blocked by immunity to damage.

Round Two

Apex

Not much damage was dealt to Apex, so he heals completely. He gets 5 healing from himself and 5 from The Pack Hungers, though he can't go over his Maximum of 50. There are no werewolves at 3 or less HP so no one gets destroyed. But The Pack Hungers destroys itself.

As a note "Destroyed" only means "not in the scene/available for use anymore" it could mean knocked unconscious, trapped, or forced to flee for living creatures or disarmed, stolen, or otherwise unavailable for items. Fanatic (not in this game) has multiple cards of her signature sword representing her ability to recover it quickly if it is lost, not that she has actual multiple copies of Absolution.

Apex plays his top card and gets "On the Blood Trail" which brings Gumbo into play. Gumbo immediately attacks the lowest HP Hero target because of the card but this is reduced to 0 by Nightmist's Starshield.

Now, the werewolves throw themselves ineffectually at Nightmist's Starshield. In frustation, Apex damages all his pack (I mean he does this every round, I'm just imagining it's because of frustration with being blocked by Nightmist here). Then Gumbo snaps back at Apex because Apex has the most hit points here.

Nightmist

Still at 18.

Starshield tries to deal damage to Nightmist at the start of the round, but she discards a card to redirect the damage to Rowan causing Rowan to be defeated and go to Apex's trash.

No more stalking for you.

She plays Master of Magic. She uses Magical Mentor to Boost Alpha again (she does this every round) and takes 1 psychic damage from Persistent Paparazzi asking her questions.

The paparazzi makes me think this is not one fight but an ongoing situation across the city over several days. I'm also aware that Alpha's day job is that she's a reporter.

She draws Scouring Mists and then Master of Magic allows her to draw up to a hand of 4 getting her Essence Transfer and a second copy of Master of Magic.

Alpha

Still at 26.

Insatiable Hunger can't destroy any target so she discovers an Ongoing and finds Rip and Tear.

Lupine Senses reveals "On the Blood Hunt" for Apex and she decides to trash it instead of draw cards.

That ends her Start Phase and she then plays Hamstring targeting Apex. This prevents Apex from doing any damage until Alpha's next round. It's also some significant damage since she's boosted by both Nightmist and Legacy as well as the bonus damage she gets on Apex for being his Nemesis.

She decides to use her Prowl power instead Rip and Tear in order to discover a new Aspect and gets Powerful Frame so attacks coming in on her deal -1 damage unless irreducible or fixed. Under normal circumstances, I'd probably stop at two Aspects, but hey, Nightmist is teaching Tabitha how to better control herself... and Nightmist admits that Tabitha already has a lot of control.

She takes 1 damage from paparazzi. Oh the stress you must feel during shop talk with other reporters, Tabitha, trying to keep your secret.

She draws Furious Slash.

Now End Phase happens and she has 3 Aspects. Timber has the lowest HP on the board so she goes to town on him attacking him once for each Aspect in play.

Mister Fixer

Still at 27.

He plays Harmony. He has both a Style and a Tool so he now deals +1 damage with his attacks.

He uses strike with Jack Handle and Alternating Tiger Claw style to attack all four werewolves with irreducible damage.

I opted not to collect another tool.

He now draws a second copy of Harmony

Expatriette

Still at 23

Plays Lock and Load.

First she summons Pride and Prejudice... just for the flavor of having her signature handguns in play.

There are now 3 guns in play so the next step of Lock and Load discovers three Ammo: Thermite Rounds, Shock Rounds, and Hollow Point Rounds.

Finally, she chooses Legacy for the last step of the card and he plays the top of his deck: A True Hero. Legacy Draws Bulletproof Skin and Thokk. Everybody else heals 1, neatly canceling the Paparazzi damage.

She decides to fire her SMG with Hollow Point rounds to hit all the werewolves. This defeats Timber as Timber was weakened severally by Alpha and Mister Fixer. So he goes to Apex's trash.

She takes 1 point of Paparazzi psychic damage, neatly canceling the healing from Legacy.

Draws Assault Rifle.

Legacy

Still at 22.

Simple round, he plays the Ol'One Two and hits Flint for 2 damage. Then he uses the extra card play to play Bulletproof Skin so that he is now also reducing incoming damage. (remember HP is narratively covering lots of things... he always had Bulletproof Skin, but now it becomes narratively relevant)

He Galvanizes and draws Inspiring Presence

Megalopolis

In the start phase all the Heroes choose to discard a card to get rid of the Paparazzi. When a card demands that I discard cards to remove it, I always imagine the discarded cards are the method the characters used to solve the problem

So, I imagine that Legacy reassured people that he was involved in the situation, the man doesn't have a huge ego, but he has that perfect amount of lovable confidence. Nightmist probably started talking magic and perhaps some reporters got a little lost in the terms and also the fact that they were speaking to someone who had mist for hair. Expat just ducked the whole scene and vanished into one of her caches until the reporters lost her. Mister Fixer parkoured well past their ability to follow. And Alpha dealt with the stress of being around her colleagues by locking herself up for the night.

"Arg, I can't stand Lisa and Tom one more minute, I've got to go chain myself up."

"I know, right, Tabitha? Sometimes I feel like I'm just going to go beasty you know?"

"...." staaaaare "I'm going now. Khalil."

And now Megalopolis played "Bank Heist in Progress"

Round Three

Apex

Apex Heals 4 because there's only four werewolves in play: himself, Alpha, Gumbo, and Flint. This isn't enough to heal all his wounds but he also still has the most HP of all the werewolves. So he doesn't switch.

He plays Making of an Alpha to force Alpha and Fixer to fight as they are the two highest HP heroes. Mentor Nightmist had boosted Alpha so reduces the damage she deals by 3 causing Fixer to only take 1 damage. I should have used Fixer's reaction here to use his Jack Handle to hit all the villains, but I forgot about it.

Making of an Alpha then plays the top card of Apex's deck and puts into Play "Hunting Party". This brings back Rowan and pulls out Blood Magic's Boon. This is actually good in some ways since now all the werewolves are dealing Infernal damage so when Rowan stalks and attacks Nightmist, Nightmist can use her Amulet to redirect it.

Apex deals 0 damage because Alpha still has Hamstring in play (it was conceivable something could have destroyed it before it got to his time to do damage).

Such a great Apex predator unable to do any damage at all for two whole rounds. Not even able to snap at his bulli- I mean oppres- I mean loyal pack mates.

Flint hits Mister Fixer. Gumbo hits Expat and Apex, Rowan attacks Nightmist and here I decide to stop focusing on minions and redirect that damage to Apex.

As a note, I DID end up using Fixer's Tiger Claw Reaction here and attacked all the villains with the Jack Handle. Since you can only use each Reaction once in a turn and he only had one Reaction in play, it became a non-issue gameplay.

Just would have been funnier to use it at Making of an Alpha.

Nightmist

Still at 18

Plays Essence Transfer, chooses to use Master of Magic's option to discard from hand if the top-card discard isn't something she likes. Drains Apex and uses that to heal Legacy.

Magical Mentor to Alpha as last round.

Master of Magic lets her draw up to four cards and she gets Scouring Mists, Droplet of Lethe, Essence Transfer, and Mistform. The last is not useful right now because it only protects against non-Infernal damage and the Blood Magic's Boon makes all the werewolves deal infernal. In the past edition it was just general damage immunity and far more powerful, allowing Nightmist to effectively tank at the cost of having no actions except drawing cards. The new version is much more limited.

But to be honest, Mistform in the old edition was mostly boring unless you were playing solo and controlling every hero. Even then... it's not great. Having it for one round is fine for me.

Alpha

Still at 23.

Insatiable Hunger discovers Badger the Bloodied which immediately allows her to defeat Flint. (yeah, I decided not to focus minions, but I'm going to take advantage of vulnerable ones) And now she has a reaction for when she takes damage.

Lupine Senses reveals Chel and I decide putting a new werewolf in play isn't the worst thing this deck can do to me, so I put her back on top and draw 2 cards but didn't note down what the draws were.

Now... that's Alpha's Start Phase.

At this point I choose to skip her Play and Power Phases to jump straight to Draw Phase in order to deal with the Bank Heist.

I'm thinking that was some terrified bank robbers.

"What the fuck?! A werewolf? This is Megalopolis, aren't all the weird and crazy heroes in Rook City?"

She Draws Lycanthropic Frenzy

Now, her turn's not over.

End Phase comes AFTER Draw Phase and she has Three Aspects in play.

Flint is the lowest HP on the board so Alpha goes to town on him and he's defeated and sent to Apex's trash.

What was it you said again Flint? "We'll fight, you'll die?" well... I can see how that worked for you.

Mister Fixer

Mister Fixer is now at 22 out of 29.

In Start Phase he opts to use Harmony to play a style and replaces Alternating Tiger Claw with Driving Mantis.

He loses the irreducible damage, but that's not much impact with Galvanize going on and Inspiring Presence on the horizon, and thus means he draws cards whenever he uses a power. The Reaction change now means he uses a power instead of just hitting a target. Which sounds like the same, but now he's dealing damage AND drawing cards. So it's a boost.

I considered changing tools but since I know we have another werewolf coming up due to Alpha's Lupine Senses, I figure it's more important to keep the AoE damage going with Jack Handle.

Interestingly... it looks like I accidentally skipped Fixer's Play Phase here... or I just forgot to note it down. Whoops.

Anyway, he Strikes and hits the three present werewolves and then draws Manifold Path and Riveting Crane style... which has an even more appealing reaction on it.

So, I have ALL these cards, plenty of discard fuel. And with Galvanize, Harmony, AND Inspiring Presence, that would be 4 damage instead one. And with the Jack Handle that would be hitting pretty much every enemy.

Yup... that's good stuff.

So at this point I'm already thinking of going Full Throttle which I drew at some point on the next round and just tearing the villains apart.

His Draw Phase produces another extra Harmony. Yeah, Riveting is looking pretty good.

Expatriette

Expat is at 20 out of 28 HP.

She plays Backup Plan

First she discovers Liquid Nitrogen Rounds

Then she lets Alpha hit Apex. In retrospect having Fixer do this would have been more efficient as his Jack Handle would make it AoE, but the flavor of directing Alpha at Apex. The juicy juicy flavor of it.

Then she lets Legacy heal 2.

Then she chooses to Salvage her Hollow Points back into her hand.

On to Power Phase and some quick math says that both Double-Barreled Shotgun with Thermite and Hollow Point and Pride and Prejudice with Thermite and Hollow Point will do the same damage (if Inspiring Presence was up, Pride and Prejudice would do more damage since the Galvanize and Inspiring boosts would each happen twice for 4 extra damage instead of 2 on the shotgun's one hit.)

So, again, I opt for the flavor of Expat using her signature weapons and just unleash both guns on Apex.

She then draws Comprehensive Plan.

Legacy

Legacy is at 24 out of 32 HP.

He has a simple round. He plays Inspiring Presence, everybody heals except him and then he Galvanizes. All his allies are now dealing +2 damage.

I have to say most of Legacy's tank build ended up in my hand for this game. Of the cards below, only Heroic Interception never appeared.

However, between Nightmist's turn one Starshield and Alpha's turn two Hamstring, I was already handling damage fairly well. Apex wasn't hitting me with cards to destroy my set up (destroy Items or Ongoings) and Megalopolis was being annoying but wasn't throwing anything I couldn't handle at me.

I also had some decent damage in hand.

But seriously, it was just way more effective to boost Legacy's allies than to do the actual damage.

Narratively speaking, he would still have been in the fight, getting his punches and going toe to toe with werewolves, but the main effect of this would be to open the path for his allies to effectively shut things down and keep the morale of the heroes and public up.

Speaking of Megalopolis

Megalopolis

Plays Hostage Situation.

Now, at the end phase, we're given a chance to discard cards to solve the situation without having to divert actions to hitting him. But you know what? This is a 6 HP target. Rowan is still in the field and she's going to attack the lowest HP target, and Chel is going to play now too and she'll do damage too.

You know what? Yeah, I'm good, you can be werewolf bait, hostage taker.

Round Four

Apex is at 30 HP. He heals 4 because there's just him, Alpha, Rowan, and Gumbo in play. Then Blood Magic's Boon causes him to suffer 3.

He plays Chel. Leaving Chel on top was the right play. A nasty One-Shot or Ongoing could have made things come out different. As it is, he only gets a new minion.

Apex finally gets to do damage! ^_^

He hits Legacy and has his damage reduced by Bulletproof. Then he attacks all the werewolves. His damaged is reduced against Alpha, but also increased as he's her nemesis.

Rowan hits Hostage Situation, Gumbo hits Legacy for 3 and Apex for 2, Chel hits every non-villain including the Hostage Situation. Since Sequencing matters this is the order I did Chel's hits:

Chel hits Hostage Situation for 2.

Chel Hits Fixer for 2,

Fixer's reaction hits Chel for 5

Fixer's reaction hits Rowan for 5.

Fixer's reaction hits Apex for 5

Fixer's reaction hits Hostage Situation for 5. Hostage Situation is defeated. Ending it with a Hero instead of Werewolf villains means I think Fixer saved the hostage and hostage taker from the werewolves.

Chel hits Nightmist for 2.

Nightmist redirects the infernal damage to hit Apex for 1

Chel hits Alpha for 1 (Powerful Frame)

Alpha's reaction hits Chel for 5.

Chel hits Expatriette for 2.

Chel hits Legacy for 1 (Bulletproof Skin)

Nightmist

Nightmist is at 19 out of 28 HP.

She plays Essence Transfer and hits Apex for 6 she then heals Alpha for 5.

She boosts Alpha and draws Coalescing Spirit (Which has a picture of her aiding Alpha, so wish I could have played that for the flavor).

Oh well.

In any case, this was where I realized Alpha could finish it as Apex was at 17 health and she had a LOT of damage available via Galvanize, Inspiring Presence, and Magical Mentor.

Alpha

Alpha is at 25 out of 32 (my notes say 28, I think I misread my ticker, some of the wheels are put together wrong and I may have seen an upside down 5 as an 8)

Going to her Start Phase before skipping to the end.

Insatiable Hungry can't destroy any target and I want to Discover anyway. And it Discovers Hamstring that's where "Bwuahahahaha" got scribbled in my notes.

Anyway. That's 6 damage to Apex. I would say he can't do damage until Alpha's Start Phase, but it IS Alpha's Start Phase so Hamstring gets destroyed as soon as her other Start Phase events finish.

Not that it matters. It just made me laugh because it was just such a thumbing the nose at him.

From here, Lupine Senses reveals "Making of an Alpha" and I replace it to draw two cards: Rip and Tear (already in play) and Fatal Feast.

I look over my options and reason that Lycanthropic Frenzy has her attack all targets and has a quote from Apex praising her for giving in to her nature. So I'm avoiding that one. I had a couple of other options, but ultimately I go for Fatal Feast again.

Fatal Feast discovers Eye for the Hunt... and now she's doing +4 damage each attack (Magical Mentor, Galvanize, Inspiring, and Eye for the Hunt). Now, this would be dangerous if the game were taking longer because her Aspects could now do enough damage to get around Magical Mentor taking 3 off, but... it doesn't matter.

That takes Apex to 6.

Then we come to Power Phase and I use Rip and Tear.

Apex doesn't even survive the first of Rip and Tear's two hits.

Wrap-Up

Apex is aggressive and has some potential for being tricky, but is a fairly simple and straight-forward Villain. Handling his pack is important and having the ability to prevent or reduce incoming damage is essential.

Mentor Nightmist works exceptionally well with Alpha. Even though I only ever had to reduce her damage once, the simple confidence I could handle it if I didn't control her targeting well enough gave me the confidence to lean hard into her being a full-on werewolf. Even though I only got 4 out of 6 aspects into play.

And it was such a flavor win for Alpha to land the final blow.

I had some math errors and missed plays but nothing that impacted the final result. At one point Rowan just vanishes from my notes in the end of Round three, no indication she was defeated. So I had to extrapolate what happened.

[anteomnia]

i could write an essay on why wyll’s character is mistreated by the writers and developers of bg3, but i’d be afraid of putting more effort into his story than them.

[greatpistachiopie]

random p5 fanart cause i can't play persona 3 reload