11 minutes ago, Derrault said:

Next stop, Modok!

May you Rest in Peace.

Honestly I didn't struggle with him too much the first time I tried him? But Leadership She-Hulk didn't go as well, and I ended up giving up when I drew the second copy of Modok's side scheme and had 16 extra threat to chew through on top of a regular old acceleration token. Even without the unlucky draw, I hadn't made much progress on Klaw. He's just really nasty against certain builds, and the fact that they paired him with Masters of Mayhem (loads of extra Boost effects), I think really contributed to peoples' reasoning that Masters of Mayhem was more difficult than advertised.

So if you want a fun Sprint game, so to speak, try out Aggression Spidey vs Rhino with Bomb Scare and Legions of Hydra.

Basically just a boxing match, trying to knock him out really quickly before he overwhelms you. I managed to play Webbed Up on turn one, used Enhanced Spidey Sense on Shadow of the Past Rhino’s first turn, and still ended up with two Hydra (with Guard) on the board when I drew Legions of Hydra (with Stage 2 Rhino at half health or so). At that point it was really just “knock Rhino out or I lose” and an Advance came reeeeal close to getting me there.

It was a fun game and I managed to squeeze it into ~15/20 minutes including setup and Teardown (didn’t unsort the decks for times sake, but.)

23 hours ago, SpiderMana said:

May you Rest in Peace.

Honestly I didn't struggle with him too much the first time I tried him? But Leadership She-Hulk didn't go as well, and I ended up giving up when I drew the second copy of Modok's side scheme and had 16 extra threat to chew through on top of a regular old acceleration token. Even without the unlucky draw, I hadn't made much progress on Klaw. He's just really nasty against certain builds, and the fact that they paired him with Masters of Mayhem (loads of extra Boost effects), I think really contributed to peoples' reasoning that Masters of Mayhem was more difficult than advertised.

Ok just finished Black Panther Protection vs Expert Rhino II/III + The Doomsday Chair.

Modok is an interesting character, against BP it actually behooves you to just defend and retaliate yourself, rather than attacking him, using your minions to suck up Rhino’s attacks.

It was touch and go in the early game as Modok dropped by turn 3 and I had to scramble to hold the line, just keeping the threat off that main scheme while building my board. As mentioned above, I basically ignored Modok himself for 4 rounds, just applying retaliate damage, getting as low as 3 health and as high as 6 threat on the main scheme and then managed to finish Modok off using Nick Fury’s 4 non attack damage, remove 2 threat with his THW and absorb Rhino’s hit.

After that, it was only a matter of time, and Modok never came out again. Med Team was my mvp card, keeping BP functional when I simply couldn’t afford to leave hero mode with Modok out.

Ok after completing my Protection Panther playthroughs of Rhino, I’ve swapped over to Aggression Iron Man. Completed Expert Rhino 2/3 + Bomb Scare and the Masters of Evil pretty handily using the same strategy, using futurist to cycle for key cards; in order of priority: Stark Tower, Pepper Potts, Avengers Mansion, Helicarrier, Arc Reactor, any other Suit pieces.

Once you have the tower in place, it’s ok to burn the suit pieces to build up the rest of your board, and once the reactor is in place you can recover/defend to slightly mitigate Rhino’s big attacks every turn as necessary. This ran like clockwork, until I made a critical error when playing with Under Attack. He’d pulled out two upgrades, Vibranium Armor (gives a tough card after being damaged, requires two physical and exhausting your hero to remove) and the Ivory Horn (+1 attack, requires three physical to remove). I got greedy and removed the armor instead of the attack; then I decked out, and my encounter cards were charge + gang up. That led to a 9 damage hit, and I’d already blocked on the first one, and had no allies in play to help mitigate. Had I removed the horn, instead I’d have survived at 2 less damage (albeit barely). A good cautionary tale to beware the board state when you’re about to deck out.

Aggression iron man is good in that it can shore up his weak ATK stat; but I have a spotty track record with Hulk so far, he’s pulled a mental resource card so far every time I’ve played him, which effectively makes him a worse Haymaker (since it burns a card from the deck too). For future runs I might play him just to block Charges, since 5 HP off the top is better than anything else Iron Man can do.

On 12/5/2019 at 5:00 PM, SpiderMana said:

May you Rest in Peace.

Honestly I didn't struggle with him too much the first time I tried him? But Leadership She-Hulk didn't go as well, and I ended up giving up when I drew the second copy of Modok's side scheme and had 16 extra threat to chew through on top of a regular old acceleration token. Even without the unlucky draw, I hadn't made much progress on Klaw. He's just really nasty against certain builds, and the fact that they paired him with Masters of Mayhem (loads of extra Boost effects), I think really contributed to peoples' reasoning that Masters of Mayhem was more difficult than advertised.

For MODOK, you basically have to take him down in one big hit or not at all, otherwise he's going to ping you for 4 dmg every turn instead of just 2

sometimes the safest option is to just ignore him. i've had my most success just completely ignoring his side scheme and the minion itself, and only really bothering to take him out if i have, say, a Swinging Web Kick that can get rid of him right away

Ok, so Legions of Hydra requires a complete about face in strategy to succeed. I played maybe 6 games; and lost the first 4 in a single turn every time either going from 0 threat to 7+ or suffering more than 13 points of damage from back to back attacks despite choosing to defend.

Success finally came when I focused purely on building out allies, and having them available to run interference. Aggro Iron Man really has no other recourse than to have allies on the board to take the hit. I think it’s very likely that I’d place Lockjaw into any deck for Iron man.

Fortunately Hulk is only 2 cost for 5 hp, and that’s pretty much required for when Rhino throws out a Charge.

4 hours ago, Derrault said:

Ok, so Legions of Hydra requires a complete about face in strategy to succeed. I played maybe 6 games; and lost the first 4 in a single turn every time either going from 0 threat to 7+ or suffering more than 13 points of damage from back to back attacks despite choosing to defend.

Success finally came when I focused purely on building out allies, and having them available to run interference. Aggro Iron Man really has no other recourse than to have allies on the board to take the hit. I think it’s very likely that I’d place Lockjaw into any deck for Iron man.

Fortunately Hulk is only 2 cost for 5 hp, and that’s pretty much required for when Rhino throws out a Charge.

Legions of Hydra is real tough for sure. imo, it's the toughest module in the core. i once had a game where i drew the second copy of the scheme the very next turn after i had drawn the first ;_____;

it... did not go well

In solo, it's horrible. I don't feel it's as bad in multiplayer

I'll elaborate: last night my sons and I went up against Rhino with Legions of Hydra. It was Protection Black Panther, Aggression Spider-Man, and Justice Captain Marvel. I was Marvel engaged with a Hydra Soldier (?) when Legions came out as an encounter flip. This brought Madame Hydra in giving Legions 7 threat. On our next turn, among other things our team was able to burn through the 7 threat and Madame Hydra's 6 health. In solo, this would have been a nightmare. But it just set us back a turn. Of note, the 2nd time Legions of Hydra came in, my son used Enhanced Spider-Sense to cancel its "When Revealed" effects. It still came in with the 3 threat, but no Madame or boost from other Hydra enemies.

1 hour ago, HirumaShigure said:

Of note, the 2nd time Legions of Hydra came in, my son used Enhanced Spider-Sense to cancel its "When Revealed" effects. It still came in with the 3 threat, but no Madame or boost from other Hydra enemies.

Enhanced Spider Sense can only be used on Treacheries, not side schemes...

1 hour ago, FearLord said:

Enhanced Spider Sense can only be used on Treacheries, not side schemes...

Haha, he must have just skipped to the "cancel when revealed" part. Can't wait to give him crap about it!

Modok was shockingly easy once I’d cracked the case on Iron Man Aggression; Next up was Spider-Man Justice. It was a real breath of fresh air not being at risk of dying on every attack.

Black Cat is a fantastic tool for dealing that last point of damage to Rhino after flipping into alter-ego to avoid the Stage III stun (or alternatively, to remove his Tough card).

10 minutes ago, Derrault said:

to avoid the Stage III stun

I definitely played that as getting stunned either way... I don’t recall if the rulebook makes a ruling either way, specifically, there?

15 minutes ago, SpiderMana said:

I definitely played that as getting stunned either way... I don’t recall if the rulebook makes a ruling either way, specifically, there?

It calls out that Heroes are stunned, not Characters. And the types are Heroes, Alter-Egos, Characters, Allies, Enemies, Villains, and Minions.

edit: RRG page 4

CARD TYPES
The game’s card types are: ally, attachment, environment, event, identity (hero and alter-ego), main scheme, minion, obligation, resource, side scheme, support, treachery, upgrade, and villain.
• If an ability causes a card to change its card type, it loses all other card types it might possess and functions as would any card of the new card type.
See also: Appendix III: Card Anatomy

CHARACTER
Heroes, alter-egos, allies, villains, and minions are all characters.

Yeah, it's the classic "Rhino is Chaotic Neutral, not Evil". He'll put civilians in danger to keep the heroes busy or as insurance, but all he really cares about is himself and getting that money. He doesn't know the alter-egos are really our heroes. Now Ultron and Klaw, they're pretty much just evil to the core and will hurt anyone who gets in their way.

12 hours ago, HirumaShigure said:

Yeah, it's the classic "Rhino is Chaotic Neutral, not Evil". He'll put civilians in danger to keep the heroes busy or as insurance, but all he really cares about is himself and getting that money. He doesn't know the alter-egos are really our heroes. Now Ultron and Klaw, they're pretty much just evil to the core and will hurt anyone who gets in their way.

But only Green Goblin has a card where he'll attack you even in Alter-ego form. (The Mutagen Formula with Goblin Gimmicks could be a bit challenging)

On 12/9/2019 at 6:12 PM, Tonbo Karasu said:

But only Green Goblin has a card where he'll attack you even in Alter-ego form. (The Mutagen Formula with Goblin Gimmicks could be a bit challenging)

In solo play, I think the real challenge depends on the threat per player. Rhino’s 7 makes it just a matter of time before a double scheme goes to 7 all at once.

21 minutes ago, Derrault said:

Rhino’s 7 makes it just a matter of time before a double scheme goes to

Advance is the cruelest of mistresses in this game

3 hours ago, Derrault said:

In solo play, I think the real challenge depends on the threat per player. Rhino’s 7 makes it just a matter of time before a double scheme goes to 7 all at once.

I have a suspicion that the Mutagen Formula is going to be hard. In single player you have to switch to Hero on turn 1, or there's a possibility that Green Goblin will just complete stage I immediately. After that you're into a scheme that advances per Goblin in play rather than per player and your control over it becomes much less.

4 hours ago, Tonbo Karasu said:

I have a suspicion that the Mutagen Formula is going to be hard. In single player you have to switch to Hero on turn 1, or there's a possibility that Green Goblin will just complete stage I immediately. After that you're into a scheme that advances per Goblin in play rather than per player and your control over it becomes much less.

I mean, on balance I think I’d rather have to clear minions; but yeah, that could get difficult rather quickly.

Been doing Solo playthroughs of Ms. Marvel Protection (default deck) against Expert Rhino II/III and it requires a real mental switch in terms of what the most critical activity is.

Kamala’s relatively relatively low health (10) and poor basic DEF (1) make it critical that she have some kind of supplementary effects, lest she get knocked out from the villain attacking + encounter card attack (1x gang up, 2x assault, 3x stampede in a deck of between 36-39 cards is between a 1/6 to 2/13 chance of getting a natural double attack slightly higher if you consider the encounter cards with surge.

The upshot is that if Kamala’s more sticky options aren’t developed immediately, there’s a not insignificant chance she gets KO’d turn one.

Important early turn cards are:

A Sneak By, to clear Breakin’ and Takin’ (or Red Dagger + Ms. Marvel doing a basic THW; but Sneak By is by far less resource intensive)

Energy Barriers, each one is +3 HP over time.

Endurance, which raises her HP to just enough that she can survive a double attack result.

Where Ms. Marvel also encounters difficulty is when she goes through several turns in hero mode and sees none of the Sneak By card, because apart from throwing out allies, that’s pretty much her only method for preventing advancement.

That being said, Wiggle Room is great, the ability to use Tackle over and over again is also great.

I think I’d want to include a Helicarrier, because there doesn’t seem to be a downside to having that, and it would be significantly more helpful when paying for cards on turn (Biokinetic Polymer Suit and Enhanced Reflexes are great for playing Get Behind Me! and Preemptive Strike; but neither does much for those turns you need to swap back to alter-ego, and the Helicarrier would help pay for the always needed allies).

Had my first 3 player game with the pre-built Cap and Ms.Marvel. 3rd player was Justice Black Panther. We played a "learning game" with standard Rhino stages I, II, and III. We used the new Electro modular set instead of Bomb Scare.

We had a blast, but it was the longest game we ever had.

Cap did have some good turns, I think he dealt 16 damage (not counting allies) once but overall his damage ceiling tended to be lower.

Ms. Marvel did awesome threat and damage control. There were turns that she was prevent 7 or 8 damage, not taking any. Tackle, Wiggle Room, Pre-emptive Strike, Reflective Barrier (and I slipped the Expert Defenses in there from the Cap pack) were all amazing cards. Protection got a huge boost with these cards. But again, her damage output tended to be lower. I think the most I dealt in a turn with her was 12.

Still, overall very impressed, had fun. Just think those two need to be paired with a "heavy hitter". In solo in think they will both be better, or a different scenario maybe?

Any one else got to log some time with the new stuff yet?

Alas, I am not American, so will not have access to the new stuff until next year.

Did you say you played with Rhino I, II and III? Would that not just make the game longer after the engines were up and running without making it much harder?

Well, we wanted to see content so we didn't mind the longer game. By the end the main scheme had 3 acceleration tokens. In my experience so far with doing 3 levels, we usually end up losing to the third stage. We were victorious this time.

I also played a 3 player game with the new heroes against Risky Business. It was a longer game then the core scenarios provided.

We ran Cap Justice, Marvel Leadership and Spidey Protection.

The versatility of Ms Marvel was amazing and Cap Justice really worked well.

We were never in threat danger of the scheme advancing and finally wore the Goblin down in the end.

I think a Ms Marvel Aggression build will be next. I might finally pack some tenacity in her deck to abuse her event power.