My son and I have made the following custom cards to extend our replay enjoyment
of the very fun Sentinels
of the Multiverse card game by Greater Than Games, LLC.
The game's replay value is impressively high, and the suprisingly sophisticated
mechanical variations between the different villains and heroes captured our attention.
My son immediately dove into analyzing the different heroes and how they interact
with various villains and each other and started noticing patterns from the games
we played.
So, I wasn't at all surprised when he turned to me and said
"Daddy, lets make our own guys!".
Between my own past Champions RPG campaigns,
and the years of playing City of Heroes and
Champions Online with my son, we have a lot
of material to draw on, so I figured..."why not?".
Unassuming, good-natured Thomas O'Malley had his life turned on end when he was
merged with a teleporting Wardroid in a freakish accident. Inextricably intertwined
at a molecular level, the combined lifeform is neither wholly technological or organic
but rather a unique hybrid of both.
A towering robotic humanoid hulking in at over 7 feet tall and weighing more than
400 lbs, but possessed of the mind and perhaps 'soul' of Thomas, War-Man is physically and mentally
resilient. Fuelled by an incredibly efficient compact energy reactor in
his chest, War-Man produces sufficient surplus to power supersonic flight and devastating
energy blasts. Additionally War-Man has comprehensive integrated communication and
sensor capabilities, and impressive self-repair subsystems.
Dedicated to stopping crime and driven by a do-gooder boy scout mentality, War-Man
was one of the founders of the Millennial Men supergroup and quickly became the
defacto leader by popular acceptance due to his doggedly heroic and determined demeanour.
Often it is War-Man's refusal to relent in the face of adversity and seeming hopelessness
that rallies his comrades to renewed vigour and eventual victory.
War-Man has only infrequently been absent from Millennial Men encounters, and over
the years has lead the team against the likes of Papa Zombie,
The Stygian Fool, Incantrix,
Oblivion, his own nemesis
Mr. Roboto, several interdimensional foes including
Enchante and Princess Primogen
and many, many others. War-Man is widely respected in the superhero community, and he
maintains an excellent relationship with PRIMACY.
Playing War-Man
All of War-Man's cards have an "eV" number (short for electronvolt, a unit of measurement
for energy) printed in their bottom right corner. Many of his cards function by
revealing the top card of his deck or one or more cards from his hand, and using
the eV number(s) printed on the revealed card(s) to determine their own effect.
This is represented by a red box with the letters "eV" printed within, and card
references typically take the form of "that card's [eV]".
This functions identically to Nightmist's "magic number"
mechanic.
War-Man is primarily a energy damage dealer, with some board control and team buffs.
The eV values on his cards range from 0 to 5, averaging to 2.5 across the entire
deck. The higher eV values in the deck allow War-Man to be quite potent, but the
low eV numbers also cause him to sometimes have little or even no effect (1 out
of 10 cards is a 0, 1 out of 5 is a 1). Basically, if played straight, 1/3 of the
time War-Man will be over the power curve, and 1/3 of the time he will be under.
Clever use of abilities that allow War-Man to index his own deck and sort the top
cards in an advantageous order allow a skilled player to optimize this.
A mutant with subconscious control over kinetic momentum and a superhuman physique,
Hype is a "speedster" of the first order. Hype spends about 23 hours a day patrolling
nonstop, and handles a lot of minor crimes before anyone else even knows that there
is a situation.
Hype has been a "professional superhero" since he turned 18. He served with a large
team called NewGen that was active globally
but based out of the southern states of the USA. Hype joined NewGen soon after it
was founded and was a mainstay of the team for a number of years until the team
disbanded after the death of Discus.
Hype worked solo for a few months and ended up in Millennium
City where he fought several villains and teamed up with
Gravitic, Agent X, and War-Man on several occasions. Hoping to recreate
the effective team environment he had enjoyed with NewGen, Hype spurred the formal
founding of the Millennial Men supergroup.
However John Wrath returned and formally joined
the Mill Men while the heroes pursued the dastardly Papa
Zombie; the old warhorse and Hype did not hit it off and the easily exasperated
Hype departed.
Then several members of NewGen got back together and formed a new group called Southern Justice, they extended an invitation
to Hype and he ran to Atlanta to join up for a couple of years.
But when the Millennial Men were captured by
Princess Primogen and were facing certain death,
Hype rallied an ersatz squad of supers and rushed to their rescue. Afterwards he
rejoined the team he had once founded and has been a Mill Man ever since.
Playing Hype
Hype is all about volume, with the ability to play a lot of cards that individually
do a little, but cumulatively are quite dangerous...all while building up a charge
for a big damage spike.
Hype has a few cards that need good timing to be useful, but is otherwise pretty
straightforward to play. Hyperspeed Momentum is Hype's most important card; playing
it wisely is the secret to success.
A mutant with the ability to subconsciously manipulate thermodynamics to create
fields of intense cold, Hypothermic is surprisingly powerful but also somewhat fragile.
Hypothermic worked solo briefly under the code name Iceblue,
but got in over his head and was almost killed or badly maimed fighting a gang of
street thugs. Luckily he was saved by Hype, the Hypersonic
Man, another mutant crime fighter. The two worked well together and teamed
up on and off for many years; Hypothermic dropped the Iceblue name in favor of his
current moniker to accentuate the heroic duo thing.
At Hype's urging and sponsorship, Hypothermic joined the
Millennial Men supergroup and quickly proved to be a mainstay for the
team. Over the ensuing years Hypothermic has fought more supervillains than he can
recall, helped fend off several alien invasions and two dimensional incursions,
stood firm in the face of supernatural horrors from beyond, disrupted seemingly
endless villainous schemes, and has done his part to save the world at least a dozen
times...all while somehow managing to retain his rather corny sense of humor.
Despite his long experience, incredible power, and history of success, Hypothermic
still enjoys patrolling the streets for everyday crime like a neophyte or low powered
hero, and is famous for inviting old friends to go out and "patrol" with him to
catch up on old times. The surrealism of the likes of Hypothermic and his old bud
Hype, or other world-class superheroes like Microwave,
or Proto, or Tennebrae
and so on taking down street thugs seems to be entirely lost on him.
Playing Hypothermic
Though he can dish some damage, Hypothermic is primarily a team supporter, with
the ability to interfere with and hamper the opposition, and to shield himself and
his teammates from harm.
The core play experience for Hypothermic is centered on his Ice Barriers, which
slightly more than 50% of the deck is built around. The remainder of the cards in
the set mostly offers side-grades and limited upgrades, and due to their low copy
counts wont show up in every game. Thus, Hypothermic might feel a little erratic,
but he's also very flexible and has a high replay value due to the variation in
card combinations.
To be successful with Hypothermic requires using his Ice Barriers and enemy attack
suppression abilities well.
NOTE: Several of Hypothermic's cards redirect damage to themselves. It is possible that
Hypothermic is protected by more than one of them simultaneously; if this is the
case you decide which of the available targets to redirect damage to on a case by
case basis. For instance, if Hypothermic has both an Ice Shield and an Ice Wall in play
and would be dealt damage, you may choose to redirect the damage to either one.
Powered by a Spirit of Vengeance, Scything is
possessed of supernatural resilience and mystical abilities. First emerging as a
dark vigilante hunting the seamy underbelly of Harbor City
pursuing a personal vendetta, Scything eventually put paid to the
Inverted Triangle Crime Syndicate and it's various shadowy endeavors,
and moved on to bigger venues.
For many years Scything's Modus Operandi was to simply appear on the scene someplace
where he would proceed to wage a violent and deadly assault upon the wicked, and
then promptly fade away again once his work was done. He was also known to mysteriously
appear to take part in various super-battles against dark forces and powerful evils.
In those earlier years, Scything put in several appearances fighting alongside Justice Incorporated and the team's later successor
NewGen to fight against dark supernatural threats
such as Incantrix, the
Vereux Vaudau, and Revelations Awakening.
Years later, someone claiming to be Scything
but with a somewhat different appearance and exhibiting inconsistencies with previous
Scything encounters, showed up and eventually joined the
Millennial Men. The mystical expert Legend
forwarded the opinion that this version of Scything is an entirely different man
possessed by the same Spirit of Vengeance, and conjectured that the previous host
may have been killed or simply stopped being a willing host. Whatever the case,
the "new" version of Scything wanders less than the old, is less violent, and is
more social...but is still big on being dark and mysterious and comes and goes as
he pleases.
Playing Scything
Scything is primarily a melee damage dealer, with self-buffs. All of Scything's
abilities are Ongoing...but many of them are on clocks; they enter play with some
number of counters on them, one counter is removed each turn, and when no more counters
remain the card is destroyed. For optimal effect, Scthing needs to keep his various
buffs going, which means he gets into a self-buff cycle to replace buffs that are
expiring. Scything has no abilities that allow him to either draw extra cards or
make extra plays. The net effect of this is a tight, very tactical on-a-clock play
experience where you need to make the best possible choice from turn to turn for
your single card play.
Scything does reliable damage, but has no "spike" ability or big-finisher. His main
edge is his ability to literaly mow down lots of low HP targets once he has Swathe
of Doom in play. This makes him ideal against villains that rely on lots of weaker
minions. Scything is moderately difficult to play correctly.
A former Green Beret, leader of the "Growling Recondos"
in Vietnam, and a CIA Agent for a decade. He was chosen as one of the original recipients
of the PRIMACY Procedure, an ultra-classified
"super agent serum" type process developed by the U.S. government. The treatment
was successful (not all recipients survive the process); it arrested Wrath's aging
and granted him superhuman athletic capabilities including greater than Olympian
levels of strength and agility, bullet proof skin, rapid healing capabilities, and
uncanny accuracy.
Afterwards Wrath became one of the original "Agents of
PRIMACY" and soon was the most famous member of the organization due
to his unique personality and uncompromising style. He was soon promoted to become
a Federal Vindicator, with broad discretionary
powers normally reserved for the most senior members of Federal law enforcement
and the judiciary branch, allowing him to make in-the-field decisions of life and
death in pursuit of the national interests both domestically and abroad. Just shy
of 20 years later John Wrath was the last of the original Agents of PRIMACY still
serving and the most senior of the select Federal Vindicators. However, seen by
the younger softer generation as a irascible holdover of the Cold War era, he was
finally pushed into early "retirement" by politicos and "candy-ass pencil pushers".
At the time Wrath happened to be in pursuit of a high profile gang of supervillain
thieves which several other solo heroes were on the trail of from disparate threads.
They various heroes eventually teamed up to defeat the villains and soon formed
the original Millennial Men roster together, with Wrath included as a founding member
despite his claims of non-interest. He's been an on again off again member ever
since.
John Wrath's aging was arrested by the PRIMACY Procedure and even though he's pushing
80, he looks like an extremely fit man in his late 40's or early 50's.
Playing John Wrath
John Wrath is a durable tank for the team, and dishes solid damage. He is able to
take a lot of actions, including out of sequence actions.
The core play experience for John Wrath is centered on his Omni-Shield and his Firearms
(you need at least 1 and preferably 2 Firearms in play for optimal performance).
John Wrath has several powerful abilities, primarily driven by discards, so hand
management is crucial to being successful.
The deck is very "tool-boxy" and relies on a lot of equipment, single copy cards,
card draw, and discard to work. It is very "busy", and should be played by players
who are reasonably quick at resolving their actions as Wrath has a lot of tutor
effects and extra actions. It is difficult to play correctly, but provides a lot
of tactical flexibility to players willing to invest the time into learning the
decks ins and outs.
The content is provided strictly for "fair use" fan enjoyment, and not as a challenge
to the IP of Greater Than Games, LLC.