More fun and games on the Virgil Tarikoss Strike Force, this time with missions 3-5 — Legacy Chain, CoT, and Longbow. Things went overall pretty smoothly with the first one. The second one had a few dire moments when patrols would wander along mid-battle, or when people got a bit overextended — one battle avoided being a TPK only because Ravvy got away at the last second (huzzah for Unyielding vs. the Ruin Mages). My recompense for that one was that a mapserv knocked Rav and Charity out just before the final battle and we missed the mission credit.
The 5th mish is the infamous Never-Ending Longbow Ambushes. The first time I ran this SF, it was an unending nightmare of red and purple mobs. This time it was yellows and oranges with an occasional red boss, but it was still unending and vaguely nightmarish.
Ravvy went down three times (once brought back up by his temp rez power). Others sufferered similarly. And the damned Longbow seemed to delight in hanging out by the front door.
Eventually, we managed to prevail by adhering to a few basic principles:
- Pulling is good.
- Corners are your friend.
- Pulling from a distance to bring them around the corner doesn’t work if you intercept them halfway or stand there waiting for them to shoot at you.
- Letting all of them concentrate their fire on you by running deep into the advancing wave is bad.
- Looking around to see what others are hitting on so you can help concentrate fire on those targets is good. (Two mobs with 50% damage have twice the firepower of one dead mob and the other at 100%.)
- It’s great if the bad guys are all clumped up, so you can be clumped up, too (which means you can concentrate fire and area heals can get everyone). It’s great if the bad guys are all strung out coming toward you, because that means you can defeat them in detail. It’s all good.
I fear Ravvy got a bit pushy about things, and people — some of them inordinately squishy — still seemed determined to . But, at length, we prevailed.
By which time it was a bit late to tackle the final battle against Infernal and Bat’zul. That’s for Saturday evening. Some tactical discussion beforehand would probably not be amiss …
After that, we got on with Hildy and Torchy, natch. We started doing some stuff, then discovered that this was the Second Grand Alliance Pick-Up Meeting, which I felt vaguely guilty about not attending, but it was a bit late (in the night and the week) for roleplay and revelry for me.
We bashed Council robots and Devouring Earth, then called it a night.
The meeting went well, And Ciunas made 24th out of it. 🙂
Also, disconnected the Freelancers off of the CC, which should give us the open slot needed if/when Chisholm’s SG joins.
I’d say that if the Hostess Heroes have a flaw, tactically, is #3 above.
Actually, I’d say that we do have a flaw, and that’s totally it. 🙂
Yes. Though part of that flaw is that we are so damned awesome 80% of the time, it’s hard to get unanimous consent that we need to take precautions the other 20%.
(We have a few HH that suffer from #4, too. Ho Ho does, though she’s tough enough to usually take it.)
Virgil Tarikoss – the Conclusion
Previous posts in the SF: 1, 2, 3 Team members of Strike Force Charon: Mister Ravenous (Brute, CoI), Charity at Home (Corrupter, CoI), Venenata (Dominator, CoI), Barbarity (Brute, Entropy), Face of Destruction (Stalker, ?), Lord Maleficus (…
Ok, it took me a few days to realize where I have seen a verion of the sub-heading you have for this post. The only thing I can say about it is.. Spooon!
When Brownie drops, it’s invariably #4. He likes to jump right in the middle of the group and unleah his Spine Burst and Quills, for maximum effect. It usually works well enough, but sometimes so many hit him so hard and fast that his health goes red and beyond before he can regen. Still, it’s the Code of the Scrapper…
where I have seen a verion of the sub-heading you have for this post
Heh.
it’s the Code of the Scrapper
“Real Scrappers Don’t Collect XP. Real Scrappers Collect Debt Badges.”
You could always wait a moment until Ho Ho has them taunted. That is why you pay her, after all (ahem).