Review Details

Sentinels of the Multiverse: Vengeance Expansion

Product Review (submitted on February 3, 2017):

Vengeance is the new mega expansion for Sentinels of the Multiverse. It deals with Baron Blade and his new supervillain team, the Vengeful Five (not the most original name) and their attempt to bring down the Freedom Five. It also adds a few new concepts to the game, like teams of villains (the Vengeful Five) as well as our first superhero team as well. Vengeance comes with 339 cards that comprise 5 heroes, 5 villains, and 2 environments. It costs $30. Is it worth it?

Heroes:


K.N.Y.F.E: K from here on out. Paige Huntly, agent of FILTER, is the hero KNYFE (Kinetic Neutralizer Yielding Flawless Execution). She served in the Scottish Marines before the head of The Block recruited her to head up the Special Ops team at The Block. She spent a decade in The Block and her physiology ended up altering due to the temporal distortions in The Block. She now could create close-range energy projections and is augmented by FILTER strength-enhancing technology. She noticed that all the timelines in the Multiverse seemed to be heading towards one specific event and, after bringing it up to her superiors and being told to leave it alone, decided to strike out on her own and find the temporal crossroads that was setting the Multiverse up for something big.

K focuses on dealing damage (Specifically energy damage). She's a different hero in that some of her cards deal EVERY target damage, not just non-hero targets. Her deck has some equipment to assist her, like Focused Conduit-Blade, a limited equipment card that increase energy damage dealt by her by 1 and can be destroyed to deal 3 energy damage to one target and let you play another equipment card. She also has a shield that reduces damage dealt to her by the villain target with the highest HP by 1 and some other equipment that lets her deal more damage of specific types. (like melee). She has some ongoing cards that let her deal damage using powers and can be destroyed at the start of her turn to deal damage to a target and also has other ongoing cards that let her destroy a target she takes down to 1 HP or deal damage and draw cards. A lot of her ongoing/equipment cards have additional effects when they are destroyed that let her play and/or draw additional cards during her turn (or other turns, depending on when the card is destroyed). Finally, she has a lot of one shots that focus on dealing damage. Some discard the top card of the villain deck, some hit EVERY target for 1 damage and allow her to deal additional damage to any target she hits, and some deal damage to her but let her draw 1 card, play 1 card, and use 1 power card in return. Finally, she can play 1 additional card during her turn at the cost of dealing her damage. She has no nemesis yet.

K is all about the damage. She deals smaller amounts of it per hit (a lot of her cards deal 1 melee and 1 energy damage) but her buffs make her a really heavy hitter. Mixing her with Legacy increases this to an almost insane level. She does really well against almost any villain assuming they don't have the ability to destroy ongoing/equipment cards. However, she deals herself damage and can go down rather quickly if you don't get some of the defense cards out early. She's run down to 1 or 2 HP almost every game we've played with her because she doesn't have any of those cards out early. All in all, K is a solid damage dealer who is a powerful asset to any team. She can dish out the hits and her additional abilities of drawing/playing cards on a lot of her ongoing and equipment cards means that when they are destroyed you don't feel quite as bad because you get something in return!


The Naturalist: T.N. from here on out. Formally the industrial developer known as Michael Conteh, he once controlled over 80% of the refineries in the southern hemisphere. However, he started having terrible dreams about animals trampling over him and turning his bones into skyscrapers. One day, he woke up as a gazelle! He escaped his own mansion and spent months trying to figure out what happened until one day the Agent Adept arrived and explained what happened. He'd been cursed by Akash'Bhuta for his wanton destruction of the environment. The Adept said he'd help Michael return to himself but it would take time. Michael then turned into a rhino and, after a few years and another meeting, a crocodile. Finally, he returned to himself and took on the name The Naturalist, dedicated to protecting the environment and the world.

T.N.'s deck revolves around the 3 different forms he can take. All the forms are ongoing cards that destroy any other forms when they come into play. Each form has one power on the card as well- healing for the gazelle, card draw for the rhino, and damage for the croc. The gazelle focuses on card draw/healing, the rhino on taking less damage/healing/tanking, and the croc on damage dealing. Almost all the cards in T.N.'s deck have different symbols on them (a red gazelle, purple rhino, green croc) that trigger in addition to the base effect of the card depending on the form you have. For example, the card Cornered Beast is an ongoing card with the power: Destroy a target with 3 or fewer HP. It has the croc symbol on it as well with the ability: If there are more non-hero then hero targets, increase damage dealt by T.N. by 1. As long as you're the croc and that's the case, you deal 1 additional damage! Another card, Primal Rage, has 3 different effects, 1 for each form. The gazelle draws 4 cards, the rhino deals 2 damage and the croc deals 3 damage. T.N.'s whole deck runs on this idea, and whatever form you're in really effects the cards you play and what you can do with them. It's kind of hard to explain him because he's like 3 different minor heroes, but as a rule of thumb the gazelle heals/draws cards, the rhino is a tank with minor damage dealing, and the croc deals damage. A lot of it, but normally only to one target. T.N. also gains additional benefits based on the number of environment cards in play as well, like damage reduction. That's handy.

I really, really like T.N. He's a lot of fun to play and I really like how he changes forms. He's a crazy healer as the gazelle, a great tank as the rhino, and decent damage dealer as the croc. Don't count on him to be your main damage dealer, however, because he can only focus on 1 target. We normally stick to the rhino form because he can soak up all the damage dealt to any hero, then switch to gazelle to heal, then switch back to rhino while someone else dishes out the damage. His biggest drawback is his reliance on ongoing cards and the fact that he doesn't do a whole lot for the team if he's not in rhino form. If you need a tank, however, T.N.'s your guy. He can take it and take it and take it and keep on kicking. That's what he's the best at, and he does it well.


Setback: Pete Riske had bad luck. He couldn't keep a job, couldn't do anything right, and was broke. He signed on to do some medical testing with Baron Blade, lost his hair, gained 20 lbs of muscle, and was stronger and faster then ever. He felt like the luckiest guy ever.. until things fell apart. Baron Blade showed up to take him "home" so he could see what went right with his experiment but Bunker saved Setback from that fate. Now Setback fights for the Freedom Five... most of the time. Cause he goes on lucky and unlucky streaks, and they don't want him around for the unlucky streaks.

Setback's entire character revolves around his unlucky pool, a pool of tokens (we use HP tokens) that he adds or subtracts from to use his abilities. Generally, the more tokens he takes away, the more powerful his abilities are, so you want to add a lot of tokens... but not too many, because you'll be KO'd before you can use them! Almost every card in his deck adds or subtracts to this pool.

Setback's an... interesting character to play. He's really unpredictable and he can either be the best hero in the game, mediocre, or complete trash, based off the cards he gets. His basic power, letting him add a token and play the top card of his deck, is aptly named Risk because you never know what will happen. He really needs to get the ongoing card Looking Up into play ASAP. It's a power that adds 3 tokens to his unlucky pool and deals 3 melee damage to 1 target. This lets him trigger great card effects, like Plucky Break, which removes 2 tokens from your pool, lets you draw 1 card and deal 2 melee damage to one target and, if you have no tokens left, heal for 3 HP. He can also use Karmic Retribution which removes 7 tokens from your pool to deal 1 target 7 damage or he removes 1 token (if he has less then 7)to heal 2 HP. He has ongoing cards that let him heal/draw cards as well as one card that keeps him from dying... but only gives him as much HP as tokens in your unlucky pool. He can also destroy hero cards to destroy ongoing or environment cards, and deal himself a LOT of damage through his cards.. which kind of stinks. His nemesis is Kismet.

A lot of people aren't going to like Setback because he's so unpredictable. If he can't build up his unlucky pool he's basically useless. He can also take himself out of the game quicker then any other hero because he has a lot of cards that deal himself and other targets damage. However, I like playing as Setback. They did an amazing job in creating him because he feels so... random. Which is exactly what his power is! He's a hero I pull out when I want to have fun or mess around because his quotes are funny, his cards are funny, and he's a lot of fun to play. We rarely will use him in a 3-hero game because you really need to have a hero dedicated to damage, healing, and defense there, but with 4 or 5 players he's a lot of fun to use because if it takes him a couple turns to get up and going it's not a big deal. His biggest problem is that it will take him a few turns to get up and going because he has to build up his unlucky pool. In a game that lasts limited turns that can be a big problem and is something to worry about when fighting him. I like playing as Setback but he won't be used as often in out 3-player games because he's not a... dependable hero. But that's why I like him! He's very, very different.


Parse: Born with Asperger's, Kim Howell grew to love her ability to analyze information, focus, and come to accurate conclusions faster then anyone else. She worked on the top secret Omnitron project. When the cosmic event occurred that awoke Omnitron it also upgraded Kim's mental capacities, allowing her to almost foresee the future, see weak-points in people and structures, and become a deadly archer. She's the nemesis of Miss Information and was hired by the Freedom Five to figure out who Miss Information actually was.

Parse deals projectile damage and is a buffer for the team. A lot of the damage she deals is irreducible or gives added benefits to the team, like increasing damage dealt to targets she's hit until her next turn. A lot of her cards let her discard cards for effects, like drawing 2 times the number of cards you discarded or destroying environment or ongoing cards. If you have the ongoing card Critical Multiplier in play you get to pick a hero and increase the next damage they deal by 1. Parse also effects the decks in play. She can reveal the top 2 or 3 cards of the hero or villain deck and rearrange the order, play them, or discard them, and can put cards from the bottom of a deck on the top of a deck if desired. Parse messes around with the decks and does a little bit of damage but she's definitely a support character.

Parse is ok to play. She has a few useful abilities but she doesn't deal enough damage to make her worth it for many teams. She's great against Miss Information but would be eaten alive by Iron Legacy, though she can deal him irreducible damage which is helpful. She's all about helping the team out and is someone who can be counted on to mess around with people's decks but to not deal a lot of damage. She's not designed to do that and, frankly, they did a great job designing her, she's just not that fun to play. I'd much rather have another damage dealer then her for now, but that does change based on the villain, as stated before.


The Sentinels: T.S. from here on out. Their backstory is way, way, way too long too explain. Basically, Dr. Medico and Mainstay were on a double date, beat up Le Capitan, gained a couple teammates during a later fight with Le Capitan, and formed a team.

T.S. are 4 separate hero targets that have 1 deck. You can only pick one of their powers to use each turn. Their deck is really different because there are 4 different types of cards mixed into it (for the different heroes) but essentially most their cards in the deck have effects that only trigger if certain characters aren't KO'd. Horrifying Dichotomy has Dr. Medico deal 3 damage to 1 target and The Writhe do the same but only if they are active, while Dark Delusions does the same for The Wraith (but to every villain target, and only 2 damage) and the Idealist does 3 damage to 1 target. There are cards that bring back members from your team.. with a bit of health, and there are cards that let you use a power the first time a character deals damage, and there are cards that deal damage based on the number of characters you have left in the team. That pretty much sums up what they do.

T.S. are a great concept gone wrong. I really WANT to like them but I can't. Anything that hits the lowest HP hero target will almost always hit them and they go down FAST. I found myself using Dr. Medico's healing power almost every turn while doing only a limited amount of damage with the cards in my hand. If the Idealist and Writhe are down you're basically not doing any damage, and if Dr. Medico is down you have almost no healing. I like the concept behind T.S, I just don't like how it works out. I feel like the deck is too small for them and they are too fragile, so they just die before you can really get a lot going. I'd rather have 1 hero with 32 HP then 4 heroes with 10 because the one hero will last a lot long and still be effective.


Villains:

The Vengeful 5 are a team of villains that you fight. There's 1 villain per hero in the game (you pick the villains) and the turn order is slightly different. It goes first villain-first hero-second villain-second hero-etc. etc. etc. I'm going to explain the whole story of the Vengeful 5 and their characters right now. Baron Blade is mad that the Freedom Five keep beating him up so he creates a team to fight them. He injected himself with a serum to make him stronger and faster but he has to keep injecting himself to keep his strength. He decided to create a team to take down the Freedom Five once and for all! It should be noted that each villain comes only with an oversized card, something I'm a HUGE fan of. It's a lot easier to keep track of their life with it.

He picked up Friction, a rejected intern of Taychon's who stole some prototype equipment from her, Fright Train, a comrade of Bunker's in the Army who left, became a mercenary and is like the Juggernaut, Ermine, a master thief who fights The Wraith, and Proletariat, a person who makes copies of themself whenever they are hit.. but gradually goes insane with each copy he creates.

Each villain has a 20 card deck, a character card with an incapacitated side similar to the heroes with 1 ability that triggers, a nemesis, and plays like a hero but is evil. In each villain deck there are minor villains who are nemesis with other heroes in the game and have additional effects if that hero is in play, like dealing more damage, or healing, etc.





Baron Blade: He deals damage, takes less damage, and uses devices to assist him. He also heals himself and the villain team and is infinitely more annoying then his other self. He heals a lot and can hit you hard if you're not careful. He's the second most powerful member of the team behind Fright Train.

Ermine: She discards cards from everyone's deck, redirects damage to the heroes instead of her, puts equipment/ongoing cards in play to the top of your deck, and destroys equipment/ongoing cards. She deals some light damage but mainly messes around with your hand, deck, and cards in play. She's fairly easy to kill and is the weakest member of the team because of this.

Friction: A lot of her cards deal her lightening damage if she doesn't have the shock absorbers in play, a target that prevents lightening damage dealt to Friction. She plays like Tachyon, playing multiple cards each turn and using the burst mechanic, but she only deals light damage. She can destroy ongoing cards as well. If you destroy the shock absorbers quickly she'll take herself out with only a few additional nudges from you. I rank her as second worst member of the team because at least she's annoying and deals more damage then Ermine.

Proletariat: He plays clones of himself which deal him 1 psychic damage at the start of each of his turns but deal 2 damage to the hero with the highest HP at the end of his turn. You also have to kill the clones before Proletariat which is really annoying. He's the most annoying member of the team because he can get a lot of clones out, then destroys them and heals for 3 HP for each clone he destroyed. Additionally, he will really gang up on whomever has the highest HP and take them down quickly. I defeat him first because if you leave him unchecked he can easily deal 10-20 damage a turn, something no one can recover from. He's the middle member of the team, however, because he's not too hard to beat.

Fright Train: He deals damage. Period. He can also make you discard cards and has a little healing but he's all about the damage. He's the most powerful member of the team and I take him and Proletariat out at the same time, though I'll take Proletariat out first because he can deal MORE damage then Fright Train but it's spread through multiple targets. Fright Train does about as much damage as Ra to the heroes, so you need to be really careful with him.

I like the idea behind the Vengeful Five. They are a lot of fun to fight against but make the game a LOT longer because they basically double your turn length. Each player now runs a villain and a hero which can get confusing, especially at the beginning when everyone is just getting started. What I really like about them is that you can now scale them and fight 1 on 1 or 2 on 2. That's great! However, I won't fight them as a team that often because that game takes forever. They are a great idea but I like the single villain ideas better. They make the game shorter and I feel like I have a more enjoyable experience fighting one villain instead of 5. Additionally, some of these members die rather quickly, which makes them less... Vengeful... then I hoped.


Environments:

Mobile Defense Platform: The home of Baron Blade and the Vengeful Five, this environment is all about making the game harder for the heroes. It's full of targets like gunners, who hit every hero for 1, and brutes, who hit 1 hero for 1 damage of 2 different types, mechanics who heal parts of the platform, shield generators that reduce all damage dealt to environment targets by 1 (and get healed by mechanics), and the engines that, if you destroy, causes the platform to crash and everyone to lose! Finally, you have to deal with different levels as well which all have different effects on the game. The sky deck puts destroyed cards on the bottom of your deck instead of in your trash while the bridge increase damage dealt to and by environment targets by one. All in all there's nothing friendly in here for the heroes and, if you want a tough fight, use this location. It's a KILLER to fight in, as it should be.

Freedom Tower: Home of the Freedom Five, the Freedom Tower is... mostly friendly towards the heroes. There's a room for each of the different members of the Freedom Five that effects that game. Tachyon's lab lets you discard the top card of your deck while Absolute Zero's cyro chamber deals all targets 1 cold damage and increase cold damage by 1. The medical ward heals every target for 1 each environment turn. The effects abound. However, there are also entry points where the villains enter that attach to rooms and ignore the effects of the room they are on. Additionally, they make each villain target deal 1 additional damage. I like the Freedom Tower because it's helpful but not too helpful. It makes the game easier but can EASILY make the game harder with the entry points as well. It's a will down environment.


Thoughts: Vengeance is a well done expansion but it's not my favorite. I like some of the heroes (Naturalist and Setback) while KNYFE and Parse are ok. The Sentinels are just... bad. The Vengeful Five are fun to fight against but they won't see much playtime because the games take a lot longer against them. I'd rather play 2 games vs. normal villains then 1 vs. them. The environments are really where this expansion shines because they are a lot of fun to play in. You can make the game harder or easier with each one, and that's something that Sentinels needed. The Freedom Tower is the first environment that's actually geared towards help the heroes... mostly.

I feel like they tried a bunch of new ideas here and they got some of them right. The environments were a big success, and some of the heroes were, while the villain team is ok. The hero team didn't work like I hoped it would because they just go down too quickly, while Setback was a fun idea but one I hope they don't repeat because he adds too much random to a game that you really need to be sure of what you're doing. All in all, I'd recommend this expansion to anyone who likes Sentinels and wants more but if you're happy with what you've got you don't need this expansion. It has some nice environments and heroes but it's not as fun as, say, Shattered Timelines, my favorite expansion, or Infernal Relics. I'd rank it above Rook City, however. It's a fun expansion but it doesn't add anything I feel like I need or really want to have in my Sentinels games. There's nothing here that jumped out at me like the other expansion and made me go wow, this hero/villain is amazing! There's a few good, some meh, and a little bad. If you're on the fence it's up to you- I don't regret buying Vengeance and I don't want my money back, but if I had to pick between this expansion and the Relics/Rook city expansion combo I'd that that one any day because it offers more enjoyable villains to fight. If you want fun heroes, go with Timelines. Really, Timelines was pretty solid all around. Anyways, I'd say get this but, if you feel like there's nothing here that excites you, you don't need it to make Sentinels the great game it already is.