Octopus Overlords

Since there are a few people on the board who own this game I thought I'd start a thread for people to post impressions, tactics, pictures, exciting tales of heroism, etc.

I've lost two games playing on the Gone Ballistic stage against The Brotherhood. My first game was with Kyoryu which was kind of close but Dimitri's gun toting minions kept chipping away at my health and Boris the grappler held me in place while Dimitri and I traded blows. Sadly for me, I was on the losing end of that transaction. The second game I paired up with Megan but managed to lose quickly. Now I'm on game three but I think I figured out that I was rushing the boss too quickly and wasn't building up a stock of defense tokens and sparring with minions to power up. Pretty much like a video game where you usually don't go for the big boss right away. I've knocked off some minions and powered up Megan for the first time. Also gained some nice loot cards that will come in handy in a few turns. One in particular has a bit of a funny translation but I'm interpreting it as giving me the ability to take a card away from Dimitri who has an annoying kevlar vest. The loot card in question is Pepper Spray: At any time you may discard this card to discard 1 card a figure within 2 spaces of you controls which means to me that I can strip a gear card from any enemy within two spaces. I could of course be wrong but until I hear otherwise...

Uh oh, Dimitri also has a pesky proximity mine which will go off once one of my fighters moves within two spaces. But...if I go by a strict interpretation of the text I could always play one of my cards which draws an enemy x number of spaces towards the fighter and the mine shouldn't go off since the player wasn't the one moving and perhaps strip that card instead before it goes off.

You really can take all evening analyzing card strategies! And no, I wasn't the one in Hepcat's group taking three hours deciding which cards I wanted to play!

I can say from my time with the game, Loot cards were overlooked for a long time. However, I came to learn that they can make a huge difference. Because you gain them simply by passing through a crate token, don't hesitate to plan a move around doing so.There's definitely a balance of trying to figure out how many minions to whoop on (so you get tokens and loot cards) before you make a move towards the boss.

I lost my first game with the Brotherhood when using the suggested starting fighter Kyoryu. But then I cleaned up with Brandon. That fighter's combos are terrifying if pulled off correctly. I mean, it was still a close fight, but I never felt like I was definitely going to lose at any point.

I think my favorite fighter so far has been Ronnie. She can absolutely obliterate an enemy's defense token supply in one shot, setting them up for the coup de grace from another powered up fighter in that same turn.

The minion I hate the most are those damn Bartholomews used by Davenport Manor. They start off with 4 kick and 4 grapple defense right out of the gate, then grow exponentially if you don't take them out immediately.

The rule I also kept getting wrong is that you don't choose the defense token you get for rolling a guard on a fight die, it's actually based on the attack that you're rolling for. While not a huge deal, it feels more thematic for me with that rule in place.

And yeah, loot can change the direction of a fight on a dime if you get the right stuff. I'm a big fan of the smoke bombs that let you "shift" out of engagement at any point by moving one space. That's a nice way to stay out of a fight while remaining close enough to get back into the thick of things on a dime.

A little off topic but what are people's impressions on Brook City? From what I remember from reading here there were some criticisms. I happened to miss the kickstarter for the game but it seemed like something that I would have enjoyed due to the theme. But frankly I'm happy I missed the KS so I could buy other things.

I was a little disappointed with it after a couple of games because I felt there was a point in the game where your victory was assured...but you then just had to stick around for a few more hours to do clean up work. And the variants they suggest don't really make the game more difficult/easy, they just extend that time.

HOWEVER, my love of Street Masters is making me want to go back and give it another shot with a different criminal and case than the two I've already tried. SM has taught me that the stage and enemy can make a HUGE difference on the fun factor of a game, so I want to try it again with a fresh set of eyes and a new setup.

Also, one of our Friday night SM players mentioned that he felt BC is more narrative driven than SM. So if you approach it with the mindset that it's trying to recreate an 80's detective show/movie, it might help.

I decided to be ambitious and pulled out The Kingdom Story Deck to play through with Kyoryu's Hero Deck and Megan's Hero Deck. I literally failed every single deck's goal.

That shouldn't be much of a surprise since I've yet to win legitimately. While intuitively i grasp the concept of leveling up before tackling the boss, I usually either get too impatient and suffer too much damage, or I ignore the boss too much and lose from objectives. However, at no times have the losses seemed unfair - I know they are due to my own shortcomings, and that's what keeps bringing me back to the table.

I really do love the story deck concept though. It's great for people like me who get overwhelmed with a more modular, open design. The story decks setting up the stage, boss, etc. help my analysis paralysis, and I found combining the narratives of all the decks to be a lot of fun. For instance, for the ones I chose, Kyoryu had an ally helping us fight, while Megan had a rival complicating the stage objectives. Combine that with the boss and it made for a really dynamic and fun encounter where a lot of moving parts that normally wouldn't be together found themselves interacting.

I've finally got the game flow down to the point that I don't have to consult the reference cards anymore, though I have a weird mental block against drawing from the enemy deck at the start of my turn. I've screwed up several games by skipping putting minions out, then wondering why I'm walking around an empty board. I'm slowly starting to get it through my thick skull, though.

While I do prefer controlling two fighters, I think my next tackle of the story deck I'm just going to use one. I found trying to manage two fighters' deck effects, their allies, rivals, AND the story mission to be just a tad too much for me to handle efficiently. I think I still need to grasp overall strategy better before trying to juggle all that.

I wonder if you could play this competitively with another person? It seems like the mechanics are there.

How about some photos, guys...

hepcat wrote:I wonder if you could play this competitively with another person? It seems like the mechanics are there.

You could have a huge battle royale game with just fighters and loot boxes on the stage and leave out the first step on the turn card. Or to make it more interesting, leave step one in and have a custom minion deck so fighters are battling minions as well as each other. Probably would be a quick game too.

PvP is one of the most common things that was requested and the Sadler brothers have said its just not possible - the fighter cards are all designed for PvE style play.

If you're looking for a low-cost, low footprint game that kinda gives that Street Masters feel but it totally PvP, then look for Combo Fighter. Sorry for the derail!

Solved my proximity mine dilemma by having Kyoryu take the blast. From a closer reading of the card the mine deals out general damage and Kyoryu happened to have a pile of defense tokens that just needed to be conveniently converted into power-ups. After that I played some good card combos with both my fighters and BOOM! goes the dynamite! After a few rounds a powered up Megan kicks Dimitri into a bloody pulp and it's a win for justice!

This is quite a fun game!

Had an absolutely epic round of Street Masters tonight.

Decided to do a full blown story deck with two characters and their story decks. Went after The Kingdom with Kyoryu and Megan.

I was able to achieve Megan's hero deck objective pretty quickly, which helped me focus on bigger fish. With no minions coming out early, I struggled to get going, but Megan was fortunately pumping out defense tokens so when the boss attacked we were getting charged often.

Towards the end game we had kept the boss fairly weak on defense, so I made the decision to go all in. He had 2 of 3 objectives he needed to win, so I figured the game was a lost cause anyway. We boldly went at him directly, beating him up pretty good. However, I figured I needed at least 2 rounds to take him out, and didn't see a way that was going to happen. Both heroes were within 5 points of death, and it was looking like a lost cause.

It came down to the final round, as we both had no defense tokens and couldn't possibly survive the multiple attacks the boss was going to unleash on his turn. The boss had 15 HP left, and I threw everything I had at him with Kyoryu. Unfortunately, that wasn't much. I managed to only land 3 hits, leaving Megan with a seemingly impossible 12 hits to finish him off.

Megan's turn. Fortunately she was charged from the previous round, and hit him with her kick. A timely critical earned her 4 hits and her +1 to kicks brought it to 5. 7 hp left. I then used her charge ability to activate all her channel powers. These managed to knock him down to 5. I've got one card play left, so as a hail mary I played my ability that gave me a 2 die attack and then allowed me to discard any number of Chi cards to deal direct damage. Rolled the dice and.................2 hits. Discarding all my Chi cards gave me the final 3 necessary to kill him and win.

It was nuts. Down that home stretch there were probably 3 or 4 dice rolls or card draws that would have lost me the game had they gone slightly differently.

Excited to continue the campaign now that I have some rewards for the victory under my belt! I just hope it doesn't get much harder from here on out....

Tomorrow I'm planning to start a two player story arc complete with hero stories. Now I just need to figure out which of 18 characters I've yet to play I'll use.

We tried a 5 stage story on Saturday. 6 straight games of Street Masters (we lost the first stage once and started over) over the course of about 7 hours. Not bad. Unfortunately, we ended up losing the story in the final two stages.

I think finding the right combo of fighters is more important than anything else when playing some of the harder stages.

I finished the 2nd stage of my campaign with Kyoryu and Megan last night, winning quite handily. Managed to beat not only Megan's hero story bonus stage, but the story deck stage objective as well. I'm starting to get a bit better now at recognizing opportunities and taking advantage of the state of the board.

For instance, in this particular game Dmitri (boss) just wasn't getting the gear he usually draws, and was struggling to obtain defense tokens. I decided early to take advantage of his weakness and start chipping away at him while my allies distracted minions. The end result was that I had him down to half health even before Megan or Kyoryu really even started getting strong. By the time he was much of a threat, it was trivial to go all in and finish him off, ignoring everything else on the board.

While that may sound swingy in the sense that I beat Dmitri easily compared to previous attempts, I did have the advantage of two allies from the previous stage that helped a lot in distracting minions. And while my victory was rather sound in terms of damage, Dmitri still managed to obtain 2 of 3 objectives before he died. In that regard, my victory was much narrower than it appeared.

At any rate, now that the game mechanics are really clicking and game sessions are becoming quicker, I'm having a blast.

I got my first solo play as Kyoryu against The Brotherhood in Gone Ballistic. I was surprised at how fast the game goes! I think I played correctly, but I am sure I made some silly mistakes here and there. I won, having taken about 10 damage. Dmitri seemed a tad bit underwhelming - like YellowKing, my Dmitri only got one gear card and rarely had any defense tokens. I will say that those Natashas are a PITA with their direct damage (particularly when they kept getting sidearms from the stage cards that added +1 direct damage).

One reason I likely did so well is that I had two tactics cards that generated energy at the beginning and end of the turn. Tactics stay out and stack, right?

Some clarifications - Dmitri only attacks when engaged, right? The book said that you only do ranged attacked when it specifies a target (i.e. closest fighter), so I assumed he defaulted to Equip.

I unfortunately did not hear about Street Masters until I started reading all the love here on OO and by that time the KS was over. On the upside while Googling the game to read about it I came across a vendor that was selling the Aftershock Super-Combo Tier package for a reasonable amount of mark-up, unlike eBays +$250-$300, and they offered free shipping. So while not a wash it was definitely not too bad, especially for what you receive with that tier. I figured I had weeks to a couple of months before I would get the game but it showed up on my doorstep today.

So far I have only opened the core box+stretch goals and the Aftershock box+stretch goals but only unpacked and sorted the core stuff. Couple of questions; will everything fit inside the Aftershock box (core+stretch, Aftershock+stretch, Oni and Essence of Evil)? Anyone who has the AS Super-Combo know how many sleeves it takes for all the cards, I know I could go through each book and do the math but figured I would ask here first?

Glad I only bought one game at PAX.

Still playing and still loving it, although Tainted Grail and holiday stuff has taken me from it for a few weeks.

I (and I believe YK and a few others) managed to fit everything into the big Aftershock box, but I don't sleeve. However, the way the card holders are designed, I don't think sleeving would add any height to the contents, so you should be able to fit it all in.

Now, if you don't want to label baggies and just store figs in that, you'll need multiple boxes. But for me, just saving one of the clear plastic lids from the core box miniature tray, bagging up all the minis by boss group and throwing their spare card divider into said baggie, then tossing all that onto the aforementioned lid and placing that at the very top of the box did the trick.

Just finished my first game of Street Masters. I used Kyoryu and Natalia against Dimitri and the Brotherhood using the Gone Ballistic stage. Basically the recommended setup for learning the game. I had one hiccup in the very beginning where I was doing fighter, enemy, fighter, enemy, which is how most of the games I have played lately run the sequence. I then realized it's Fighter, Fighter, Enemy, more akin to SoTM. I did a quick reset and started again.

Out of the gate things were really good, too good. The first 4 or 5 rounds I was starting to wonder why some folks were saying the game can be hard when first learning, I was having a pretty easy time. Turns out I got lucky with the shuffle and then that ended. The minions started quickly filling the game board and I think I drew in to 2 Drago's and a Boris in 3 consecutive turns. It wasn't too much later that Dimitri drew the RPG launcher. Eventually, with both my fighters down to 1 health each I had to go all in on Dimitri, who was down to about 12 hit points. I did a bit of damage with Kyoryu and then unleashed with Natalia who just happened to be charged up. I dropped an attack card and then used my charged up default power and rolled 3 criticals! Dimitri is now down to 2 health and I have 3 free rolls....and I get 3 guards. I sit there staring at the dice totally dejected and then notice I still have a loot card; Shuriken, deal 2 direct damage to any figure.

I really like Natalia, she can seriously dish out some damage and has a nice mix of deck manipulation, a little crowd control, some healing etc. Kyoryu just didn't seem to be pulling his weight. I was generating lots of power but I may have been spending it too quickly on his attacks rather than letting him charge up. Going to try him again.

Couple of questions; the RPG launcher says it hits all FIGURES within x spaces. That would mean enemies as well as fighters?
I know bosses can move through both enemies and fighters but they cannot land on an occupied space. I took that to mean the boss cannot acquire an objective item if a fighter is standing on it.

I still don't see any pix...

Tao wrote: ↑Fri Dec 13, 2019 11:27 pmCouple of questions; the RPG launcher says it hits all FIGURES within x spaces. That would mean enemies as well as fighters?

I think this was a tweak for the second printing to clarify - yes, figures mean any miniature (friendly, foe, self) within the blast radius.

I know bosses can move through both enemies and fighters but they cannot land on an occupied space. I took that to mean the boss cannot acquire an objective item if a fighter is standing on it.

That is correct. Some bosses might try to engage in melee and then toss you around (moving you off the token), but standing on it is absolutely one way to stop it from being picked up.

Kasey Chang wrote: ↑Sat Dec 14, 2019 3:10 pm I still don't see any pix...

Maybe soon. I don't have it set up but I can try.

Thanks for the clarifications.

Just finished a second game with the same exact setup. Made much better use of Kyoryu as well as using Natalia's add 2 defense and possibly heal 2 action.

Made pretty short work of the boss this game. I was able to chain loot cards to kill minions to draw loot cards to use to kill more minions which was a pretty cool mechanic if a little OP.

I was also able to use Natalia's cards to get rid of the RPG when Dimitri had it as well as using a combo of having Kyoryu use his pull an enemy toward you 3 spaces and then have Natalia force the boss to discard proximity mine before it went off in a later round. Definitely liking the card combos and fighter synergies as I find them.

Oh and I re-read the objective card and realized holding the Weapons Cache added +1 direct damage, not +1 attack dice to Dimitri's rolls.

I just cleared the board a short while ago otherwise I would have taken a few pics. I am meeting with a friend tomorrow to do some gaming and will definitely be bringing Street Masters out so I will try and remember to take some photos.

Anyone played through the "Right to Remain Silent" stage?

I am confused as to how the objectives on this board operate. I know they are "figures" and start out inactive and you can interact to activate them.

I activated one prisoner and it moved 2 spaces and attacked a minion, once it completed it's attack is that minion now engaged or un-engaged. I am guessing the objective immediately goes inactive again once it completes it's action but it's still considered a figure.

FWIW, Amazon's currently offering the base game for $64.99 (it's typically $80+ from most other retailers).

Anonymous Bosch wrote:FWIW, Amazon's currently offering the base game for $64.99 (it's typically $80+ from most other retailers).

That's a big discount. Hope it's not a box filled with rocks!

$iljanus wrote: ↑Sun Dec 22, 2019 6:10 pm

Anonymous Bosch wrote:FWIW, Amazon's currently offering the base game for $64.99 (it's typically $80+ from most other retailers).

That's a big discount. Hope it's not a box filled with rocks!

Miniature Market's also offering Street Masters for $60 as part of their Asmodee Sale until Jan 2 (plus shipping, unless included with an order of $99+).

Played maybe half a dozen games using The Brotherhood on the Gone Ballistic stage with different fighters (x2) to get a feel for the game. Won each game, some were close a couple were blowouts where we just trounced the boss (Dimitri).

Decided to try upping the difficulty a little bit and after reading various threads on BGG decided to try The Cartel on Right to Remain Silent, as folks seemed to believe these were the next step up.

First game I used Gabriel and Chan Chan, I killed the boss before he met his objective but I am pretty sure I actually lost, I played in to the wee hours and realized I was making quite a few mistakes, mostly forgetting to draw an enemy card. Next two games I tried Gabriel and Megan and lost both before round 4. Both times Gabriel was taken out by an unending onslaught of damage between Juan's unload and Ignacio's attack. In one game I took 12 damage (of 15 total) in a single round at which point I just conceded.

The difficulty curve seems pretty extreme from starter to intermediate. I am starting to think the villain and environment design in Sentinels was a lot smoother in terms of slowly ramping up the difficulty or allowing the players to tune the difficulty by mixing Villains, environments and "advanced" mode. I also feel as if there are more opportunities to recover from a couple of rough early rounds.

It's still early and I definitely have had my fair share of loses or even really bad beats in Sentinels but I need a few wins peppered in to keep the fun factor going.

Anonymous Bosch wrote: ↑Mon Dec 23, 2019 7:22 pm

$iljanus wrote: ↑Sun Dec 22, 2019 6:10 pm

Anonymous Bosch wrote:FWIW, Amazon's currently offering the base game for $64.99 (it's typically $80+ from most other retailers).

That's a big discount. Hope it's not a box filled with rocks!

Miniature Market's also offering Street Masters for $60 as part of their Asmodee Sale until Jan 2 (plus shipping, unless included with an order of $99+).

I caved and bought it . Only the base game though, I hope to someday get the expansions as well.

Despite all the awfulness with Blacklist Games, Street Masters is still one of my all time favorite solo games.

Someone on BGG has put together a list of all the characters and detailed them, additionally offering tips and strategy on how to play. It's an absolutely amazing resource, so I share:

Street masters power ranking and strategy

Now I just need the expansion and all the other add ons I’m currently waiting for.
:
But yeah, still one of my absolute favorite games.

He's missing a bunch himself (for the same reason), but it's still a damn amazing list.

I just perused it for a bit and it is very comprehensive, I’ll say.

Makes me sad (and furious) we’ll never see another Street Masters game…or MD5 game….again. Hell, I highly doubt we’ll even get the Tide of the Dragon expansion or any reprints of the original stuff. I fully expect a notice of the company going bankrupt by mid summer.

And I need to complain more about stuff like this, because the moment I do there's an update.

Street Masters (Tide of the Dragon) (Pre-order)
Following the fulfillment of Dire Alliance, EasyShip will begin the fulfillment of Street Masters (Tide of the Dragon). This will include any missing orders that we had to re-print to complete our Aftershock campaign’s missing items.
The goal is for EasyShip to complete the initial products in July/August then overlap into Street Masters by Augut. The first milestone would be to ship all products to EasyShip’s global hubs/warehouses (estimated 30-45 days on water), then fulfillment. As with Dire Alliance, we will update you once Street Masters/Tide of the Dragon freight is scheduled, with tracking number of boats so you can follow along with the process when we get there. Once EasyShip finishes the Buddy Cop/Contra/Mega Man/Dire Alliance fulfillment, we'll let you know as they begin to completely focus on this campaign's fulfillment.

But here's the kick: Dire Alliance won't start shipping before October at the earliest, I believe (based on their promise to start the shipping process to US hubs AFTER they've finished shipping their Contra/Buddy games...which they've resorted to air shipping...and those aren't due to even start until end of this month/sometime next month. That means another 30 to 45 days AFTER fulfillment of those games before Dire Alliance gets here from China. After fulfillment of Dire Alliance THEN they'll start Street Masters.

My guess is that we're looking at December (doubtful) or early next year (more likely) for Street Masters now.

But at least there's SOME movement.

I will believe any of this when I have something in my hand. The amount of money they owe QML must be enormous to have that product sitting there for ~9 months now.

Sidney Powell told me that the games are actually in Venezuela and that Hugo Chavez is keeping them there until he figures out how to win with Chan Chan.