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 Sentinels of the Multiverse is a cooperative superhero-themed card game, kickstarted in 2012 by Greater Than Games. Each player runs a unique superhero deck, which has cards and abilities themed around a specific character - Ra the sun-god avatar cuts loose with single-target fire damage, Tachyon the speedster uses draw-and-discard to burn through her deck quicker, and so on. The supervillain that the players are trying to defeat likewise has a unique deck, along with special rules and sometimes win/loss conditions. The variety of the different decks (23 different heroes, 18 different villains, and 14 environment/location decks between the base game and its three expansion sets) provides a lot of replay value, along with some built-in difficulty scaling. I need three to five players to play in this game. If there's a lot of interest, I can probably set up a second session in parallel, using a different set of heroes in each game. Two simultaneous games running is probably my limit, though. The game rules are fairly simple. Each round starts with a Villain turn. If any villain cards have a "At start of turn..." effect, this happens now. (For multiple cards, each goes off in the order they entered play.) Then, one card from the villain deck is played, and either does one thing immediately and is then discarded (One-Shot), or enters play and has some recurring or continuous effect. Finally, any villain cards with an "At end of turn..." effect trigger. After the villain turn, each hero takes their turn, in order. Turn order can be important for some effects, so swapping positions is not really kosher (pre-loading your turn is fine, though). A hero turn has "At start of turn..." effects (and for a hero, if you have multiple cards you can choose the triggering order each turn), then play a card - again, either a one-shot or some kind of card that stays in play until destroyed somehow, then use a power, then draw a card and end your turn. Each hero has one power by default, and can get more by playing certain stays-in-play cards. A few cards can get you multiple power activations during a turn - however each specific power can only be used once per turn. After all heroes have acted, the environment gets a turn. This functions as an additional 'wildcard' effect - some cards will help the heroes, many will hurt or delay them, a few will act as distractions that can hinder heroes and villains alike. Guessing when to smash down the environment deck and when to leverage it against the villain is part of the fun. One note on villains and environments - many of these have targeting triggers of "hero with the highest HP", "hero with the lowest HP", and so on. If there's a tie, players get to choose who gets targeted, separately for each card. You can choose a hero, or ask for a random assignment. Villain choice will also be made randomly, but you can ask for a preferred villain difficulty (1-4). Available heroes are listed below - the Complexity ratings below are the game designers' assessments of how finicky or combo-specific a hero is; higher-valued heroes are not necessarily more powerful, but may be trickier for a new player unfamiliar with the game mechanics. I've also added a couple of additional ratings that impact forums-based play. Mid-Turn Draw means that cards in a hero's deck allow additional draws and card plays during a player's turn, meaning that instead of your turn being "play this card, use this power, done" it instead becomes "play this card, see if I get anything good on the draw, will finish my turn afterwards". If you're not going to be able to check in on the game thread regularly, please ask for a hero without mid-turn draw effects. Search is similar - cards in the deck allow you to go through your deck to look for a specific card type and put it into play, then finish your turn. If you don't own the game yourself and aren't comfortable with giving me conditionals to describe what you want to search for, please ask for a hero without search effects. Legacy - Primarily a tank/support character, his deck largely resolves around boosting allies' damage, reducing his own damage along with some one-shot direct attacks. Complexity 1. Ra - BURN EVERYTHING. Causes fire damage, boosts fire damage, can sometimes ignore fire damage. Complexity 1, some mid-turn draw. Tempest - Elemental-themed, his default playstyle is multi-target damage but depending on the cards put into play can do quite a few other things as well. Complexity 1. The Wraith - Sentinels' Batman-expy. Equipment-dependent, takes a bit of time to build up but deals out huge amounts of direct damage with a full kit. Complexity 1, some search. Haka - Straightforward single-target damage-dealer and tank. Has some mechanics where he draws cards as part of his turn, then can dump his hand into a single boosted attack or defense. Complexity 1. Fanatic - Tanking and single-target damage. She can hurt herself to damage enemies, heal herself while hurting enemies, and has a few cards that just destroy enemy assets. Complexity 2. Bunker - A battlearmor hero, with both tanking and auto-damage. His playstyle revolves around hand size control, as a lot of his cards do things without costing actions but require discarding each turn to keep in play. Complexity 2, some mid-turn draw. Tachyon - A speedster, she mixes damage-dealing and enemy control, and has an interesting mechanic where she sometimes wants cards in her discard pile to boost her attacks. Complexity 2, some mid-turn draw. The Visionary - Psychic and precognitive. Does deck control and similar utility mixed with some damage-dealing cards. Complexity 2, lots of mid-turn draw. Absolute Zero - The trickiest hero in the base set, Absolute Zero is all about dealing himself either fire damage or cold damage and then using cards in play to change the rules around (damage -> healing, inflicting similar damage on the villain, etc.) Complexity 3. Expatriette - Guns, and lots of 'em. Lots of ways to deal damage, and some ways of putting Ammo into play for one-use damage boosts and other special effects. Complexity 2, some mid-turn draw. The Fixer - A martial artist hero; does damage and adds riders on top (reducing an enemy's damage output, keeping other heroes' damage from being reduced, etc.). Complexity 2, some search. Nightmist - Sorceress and broad-based utility player. Her spells have a wide variety of effects, but their overally strength can vary depending on a random draw mechanic. Complexity 3. The Argent Adept - A flexible if finicky support character. Has a lot of different 'Song' cards, and can potentially mix and match power use off any of them for a wide range of effects... if he can get the right cards out. Complexity 3, some mid-turn draw, some search. Chrono-Ranger - A sniper-type; uses gear and unique 'Bounty' boosts to improve his damage output, then throws out cards that do 1 base damage each. Complexity 2, lots of search. Omnitron-X - A mixed bag of just about everything; can rotate different kinds of equipment in and out of play to do different things, but action limits will keep him from doing everything. Complexity 2, lots of mid-turn draw, some search. The Scholar - Tank and healer, can either feed cards into his ongoing buffs or build up his hand to discard all at once for a single big effect. Complexity 2. Unity - A pet-master character, her playstyle revolves around getting relatively fragile but potentially powerful bot minions into play. Complexity 2, some search. Knyfe - Damage-dealer, with a bit of villain control mixed in. Complexity 1, some mid-turn draw. The Naturalist - A shapeshifter; his power lets him rotate between three different animal forms, and most of his cards have additional effects dependent on being in one form or with different riders dependent on his chosen form. Complexity 2, some mid-turn draw. Parse - Support and control, with a side of damage-dealing. Has quite a few things that trigger off discards or provide heroes boosts when she discards. Complexity 2. Setback - A bit of a wildcard, with a unique mechanic involving an 'unlucky pool' that can add tokens to either fuel later power use or increase risks to Setback. Complexity 3. The Sentinels - A mini-team of four heroes; each has a separate HP track and default power, but the team as a whole still gets 1 card play and 1 power activation per turn. More effective against villains that beat down heroes one target at a time, less effective against villains that hit everyone at once. Complexity 3, some mid-turn draw.
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Jun 7, 2014 17:29
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| # ? Apr 16, 2024 10:27 |
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Sweet, I've been wanting to play more of this game for a while now. Sign me up for Setback. Preferred villain difficulty: Not 1. 1 is easy even for super-green beginners.
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Jun 7, 2014 18:25
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