Trying to get some useful topics going with conversation for the forums and thought maybe a series on building to accomplish the Core Game Hero Challenges would be fun.

I Figured we could start with Iron Man

He has 3:

1 is finish game with all 7 pieces of armor in play

2 is Use Iron Man's Basic Thwart Power to remove 10 threat or more in a single turn

3 is Use Stark Tower to return all 7 different signature tech cards to hand in a single game

I will spend a bit of time considering my own approach but what are you thinking?

The 1st one requires no special set up and really just feeds into level 1 play. Pretty much every game long enough to go through the deck once should see this happen.

The 2nd I am interested to see how people do it.

3rd runs so counter to a good Iron Man build that it almost requires very specific setup; play a soft scenario that lets you stay on Stark side while everyone else plays the game?

1 hour ago, darthweasel2 said:

3rd runs so counter to a good Iron Man build that it almost requires very specific setup; play a soft scenario that lets you stay on Stark side while everyone else plays the game?

It might be best to try in leadership so that allies can deal with threat and minions while you slow build Iron Man. Play whatever ally you have each hand and discard everything else until Stark Tower comes into play. Get whatever pieces from discard to hand you can before the deck cycles then start discarding again once it does to filter through it faster. Interesting part of the challenge is the signature cards only have to come to hand from discard so you could discard them a second time to generate resources to play other tech and still meet the requirements.

2 hours ago, darthweasel2 said:

2 is Use Iron Man's Basic Thwart Power to remove 10 threat or more in a single turn

In solo, playing a Lead from the Front/Moxie/Morale Boost and then Avengers Assemble in the same turn would do it. (Thwart for 3, AA readies you to thwart for 4, Arc Reactor to thwart for 4 again.)

Multiplayer would be slightly easier, as you could get Heroic Intuition in the mix as well as Leadership stat buffs. And either way, you could very plausibly just play multiple Morale Boost/Moxies until your THW is at 5, then you don't need the ready from AA.

4 hours ago, darthweasel2 said:

2 is Use Iron Man's Basic Thwart Power to remove 10 threat or more in a single turn

3 is Use Stark Tower to return all 7 different signature tech cards to hand in a single game

2) Teamwork and Earth's Mightiest Heroes can help too. EMH is better with stat boosts that last beyond one action while Teamwork is only going to a a bit of extra Thwart. Side note - this pretty much has to be done in multiplayer since threat caps on the main scheme are too low to ignore for long while side schemes are more punishing in solo too.

3) This is going to be tough until we get cards that let use sacrifice cards in play so that you can lay down some Tech cards early and be functional in hero form until you get the Tower out. Protection has the edge of Tech cards in-Aspect while Justice or Leadership might be more necessary to deal with the extra threat of spending more turns than usual in Alter-Ego form. For letter-of-the-law players, they'll need to find a way to indicate which boot or gauntlet is which to ensure they bring each boot back and not just the same boot twice.

Oh, yeah, I did consider the lack of threat to thwart in solo but forgot to mention it.

I also didn't realize Teamwork worked with Thwarting 😅

loving the thought processes. At some point I may set out to actually try and accomplish all of them. Wearing all 7 is piece of cake, do that nearly every time out with Iron Man. Be a while before I try number 3 just because challenge almost reads "win the game by making it as difficult as possible."

For remove 10 threat and return all 7 pieces both The Leadership thing Cody mentioned seems a strong play.

I think these days the 10 thwart is eminently doable with things mentioned. Leadership with 3 avengers allies out and 3 Honorary Avengers does it. This is one of those "game the game" tasks where I would sit on Honorary Avengers as opposed to play or discard. Futurist lets him cycle so many cards would not be hard to do.

Returning all 7 does go hard against the grain for me just because of my playstyle. I am seldom going all out trying to build the best possible deck, largely because I try to keep every hero built and don't want to move cards around a lot. With that said, I will take tuned but not absolutely optimal desks and play them as well as I can. Iron Man is designed to get the suit on quick and get aerial every turn. Discarding armor instead of playing it is fingernails on the chalkboard.

Still, I can see a world where Avengers Mansion, The Triskelion, Avengers Tower, Futurist are burning through the deck, as he said using allies (or the second deck) to keep thwart in hand yet still around 10, toss armor to pay for Allies, use stark tower to pay for that piece, play it...it could be done. I am getting more interested. Cheap allies...Stinger, Ant Man, Wonder Man, Squirrel Girl...It has slots for both single and multi-player. Single seems tougher just because how many quests get over 10 threat without you losing?

I actually kind of like the idea of beating all three in one go. We have a campaign game Friday...or rather two campaign games, we have 8 people playing, 4 working their way through every villain in order on easy and 4 on expert and this week is round 2, Klaw and I am rolling Ant Man there..but I may actually spend a few attempts. This is actually starting to seem fun.

Appreciate the contributions, keep them coming