Two practice games in, I still believed I was playing the Apokolips team incorrectly by advancing with Granny Goodness and company and by using Darkseid’s Outwit to soften targets.

So I ran this practice again one more time. I found the Supergirl piece on sale for just a few dollars and so added her in at last. She’s a lot stronger on this force than either the Lex Luthor or the Superman, with her being another Psychic Blasting anti-Stealth piece and, as such, a potent Superman Enemy user. I needed to run her, Barda and Granny as a ranged unit while I sacrifice Female Furies to activate Granny’s damage bonus for other Apokolips pieces. It’s how Chadd ran an earlier, Darkseid-free version of this squad and I now saw that Supergirl is the essential element.

———

“THIRD TIME IS CHARM?”

For this third game, I used the ROC Ziplines map. It’s almost perfect for Darkseid, as only the scattered solo squares of elevated terrain block his line of fire at all. It’s less perfect for the rest of Apokolips, as there’s a lengthwise river of water that stops walkers, so I was going to have to commit to one half or the other with the boot speed characters.

Apokolips went first, and Darkseid immediately KO’d the Accelerator, joined by Barda and Supergirl. A Parademon Scout carried Harriet and was followed by Lashina safely behind across the river while Granny and the rest of the Furies bided their time.

Authority TK’d Apollo out to HSS and hit Lashina, whom I’d thought safe. Much of the rest of the team holed up behind the elevated squares for cover and Eli built Barrier and used Chill In Your Bones on MOVE actions to hinder Darkseid’s phase-then-shoot maneuver.

Apokolips needed to keep Authority from gaining momentum — especially being unable to safely attack with Darkseid — so I tied up much of the team with Harriet, Lashina and a Scout. But they were KO’d and Elijah ended the turn using Barrier and Chilling POWER actions.

Normally, Granny Goodness’ SP boosts Female Furies’ damage when a Fury goes down. But the Barrier eliminated that threat.

Which meant Barrier had to go. Being able to ignore all but elevated terrain for range, an Enhanced Darkseid (using his phase-then-shoot SP to get around the inability to make POWER actions) got an angle on both Elijah Snow and Jenny, knocking the former off his Outwit/Perplex SP and her off Running Shot. Steppenwolf and Knockout respectively teleported and ziplined to tie up Engineer and Eli deep in enemy territory.

Mistake.

Engineer picked Plasticity, Poison and Outwit to ping Steppenwolf off his 19 Invincible, then Sidestepped out of Ambrose Chase’s way as he got two of his possible three RANGE attacks off. Then Engineer successfully evac’d Snow from the back row for possible healing and Invigoration near the main force.

Mistake.

With Eli pushed, and with Barda getting another Leadership/Enhancement roll to untoken Darkseid for ANOTHER phasing shot (sidestepping Eli’s penalty on RANGE this turn), it was simplicity to P/T then KO Eli easily, opening up the Running Shot from Supergirl to wound Apollo (Alias feat failed — and I forgot Super Senses). Jakita Wagner was also in a bit of trouble, tied up after a miss vs. Granny and losing health.

On Authority’s turn, Doctor tried for a Pulse Wave attack but failed.  All this carrying got a lot of Air tokens on Swift. So after getting Invigoration from Engineer, she picked up Midnighter to get in close to take on Darkseid & Co. while Jack Hawksmoor moved to back up Jakita.

Mistake.

After yet another Leadership from Barda on Darkseid, Supergirl used Superman Enemy to Outwit Swift’s Combat Reflexes and push and hit her with this SP:

SCATTER THE HUMAN RABBLE: Supergirl can use Super Strength and Quake. When Supergirl has two action tokens, she can use Quake as a free action.

and this trait:

DARKSEID’S ASSASSIN: When Supergirl hits with an attack, after actions resolve, give each hit character an action token. If one or more hit characters were unable to be given an action token, remove an action token from Supergirl…

So she hit for 3, tokened Swift to push her, then Quaked again for another 3 and KO in just one costed action.

Then Darkseid one-shot Midnighter (Alias feat failed).

Then Granny beat up Jack and Stompa double-Quaked him and Jakita, KOing her.

Then Barda used Running Shot to finish Jack off.

Four Authority/Planetarys down in ONE ROUND … Two from full health!

But all that drew fire from Doctor, who pushed to get a solo PW of Darkseid for three. Apollo, healed back to full, got an Enhanced Precision HSS shot to ping Supergirl (she got Impervious) followed by a harder shot from Jenny. Then Ambrose got a clutch breakaway from Knockout to Running Shot to elevated and shoot at six targets, KOing Granny and, most importantly, getting Barda off that Leadership SP.

And just like that, the momentum was solidly with the Authority, despite being down 5 figures.

I think I made my last mistake with Apokolips when I forgot Barda’s range after she lost her Running Shot. A hail mary range attack against Ambrose’s 20 could have yielded results. Supergirl’s HSS attack on Jenny was unsuccessful (Super Senses) and Apokolips never recovered, especially after Ambrose pushed next turn.

He, Apollo, Jenny, Engineer, Doctor and Drummer were all left standing.

LESSONS LEARNED

I need to respect the power of the Authority more. In this third game, even with the advantages to Apokolips and better play of the team on my part, the Authority completely reversed what should have been a game-shattering loss of force in that one round. The second match, I thought the game was completely lost in the early going but the team recovered. And in the first game, even I was a bit shocked how quickly the tide turned after Midnighter got shot.

Speaking of which, I have not figured how to keep that dude from getting alpha struck. I need him to be ready to make an alpha strike of his own sometime, but it seems that leaves him far too vulnerable. I think I need to completely rethink how I deploy him.

Despite all this, it was all academic: in between the first two playtests, Chadd messaged me saying he was thinking of not packing the Apokolips team after all, leaving me throwing up my hands, saying, “What am I doing all this for, then?”

Then he had a different team idea. So the series continues next week!