Purple
(She/Her)
A few years ago there was a kickstarter I backed mostly just to support people I liked for the RPG Mutants & Masterminds to get a book out, and also for the Sentinels of the Multiverse people to make a whole new big chonky box based on that game's default setting and characters called Sentinels of Earth Prime. I moved multiple times since then and did a lot of other stuff but it finally shipped and actually got here, so I just unboxed it and played a couple games to get each of the 10 heroes a quick run-through. Some thoughts, that really assume you've all played the normal version:
Broadly, there's a big design focus here, especially with environment cards, of having cards tell other cards to do damage rather than do it themselves. Which is a bit weird, but when you have stuff like "the villain does some fire damage to something" or "the most hurt character does melee damage to the least hurt" bonuses and penalties are going to come into play a lot when otherwise the math's going to be consistent, so, that's a little neat?
It also feels like all of these decks have at least a splash of "let a friend play a card or use a power" to the point where in my second test game I had this absolutely bonkers baton passing combo on turn ONE where I burned through like 30 different cards. Might be a fluke but if you wanna do crazy juggle combos, this is the set for it.
Also every hero in the deck comes with an alternate hero card like the promos and that's just a really efficient replay value add.
Characters, difficulty 1:
Captain Thunder- Kinda one of those beefy types who just kinda takes a big swing each turn. Which hey that's fine, it's nice to have the truly basic option.
Bowman- I've got a bow and a lot of gimmick arrows which mainly let me discard stuff for extra damage and I get enough extra draws to feed that. A nice consistent damage dealer.
Johnny Rocket- Feels like he should be difficulty 2. Half his cards are "momentum" where you get a nice little bonus and add to a resource stack, the other half burn cards off that stack for bonus stuff. Speedster theme so you do a lot, and one momentum card of which there's multiples lets someone else fish any equipment card out of their deck and put it immediately into play, which is absurdly good for some people.
Lady Liberty- One of those heal/buff types, which are dull, but plays a bit more actively than say, Legacy, so that's nice.
Star Knight- I don't think the difficulty is wrong here, which is odd because the concept feels like a more advanced character's. You've got a big fancy set of space armor, and you're kinda constantly throwing chunks of it away to make explosions which you boost by putting your discards on the bottom of your deck, and then fishing your gear back, which is also nice gear. It's an odd flow.
Difficulty 2 characters:
Siren- Pretty neat. Lots of give friends extra actions, and lots of "here is a global effect that gives everyone a real harsh penalty." One of these prevents any HP restoration which I think technically as written lets you do speedruns on any villains who flip at 0 HP for a true form as written.
The Raven- Another obviously Batman but a girl, but they avoided the easy way out of just reskinning Wraith. Basically has equipment/one-shot hybrid cards where you have meh gear you can trash for decent damage, usually split into multiple hits/elements.
Doctor Metropolis- So concept wise he's like, a ghost that possesses a whole city, or maybe just a sentient city, that just repositions stuff to thwart people all Dark City style. Mechanically, you are constantly spamming out swarms of 5 HP minions in the form of like street signs that tie people up or dead ends denying actions to mooks, which lose HP over time, but can be healed en masse. So... basically he's a hero who plays like a villain deck and that is just really really neat. And takes up a ton of table space if nothing's doing area damage.
Difficulty 3 villains:
Daedalus- Literally the Greek mythology guy, just being immortal and also Ironman. All about equipment cards to make his flying power armor go higher and be more awesome, with the caveat that using all the good powers makes you draw cards, and if you ever go over 7 everything explodes. Also has some stuff to just burn a turn discarding down for safety. So first off, yes, great theming, love it. Also it's really interesting strategy wise to kinda flip the script on hand size management.
Pseudo- Pseudo sucks. Worst hero ever. Shapeshifter where you have a whole bunch of mutually exclusive form cards that do a thing on play and also at the end of your turn, and you're basically forced to play at least one a round. But then like.... the only powers you get are fishing for more form cards, and only a couple deal damage, and you basically don't end up actually doing much of anything. Sad because the same basic concept was done really well with Bunker in the original release.
Also one of the villains is Hades, matching with Daedalus there, who has the really quite novel mechanical deal of foisting Faustian deals on heroes where you get a legitimately good perk, but also a contract card which when destroyed absolutely trashes your stuff, and if you just leave them out, he collects a bunch and flips. Just feels really different.
So yeah, overall I'm quite happy to have spent... however much money I spent on this what literally feels like a lifetime ago.
And yeah, totally compatible with normal Sentinels if you want two shameless Batman-but-girls to team up or whatever.
Broadly, there's a big design focus here, especially with environment cards, of having cards tell other cards to do damage rather than do it themselves. Which is a bit weird, but when you have stuff like "the villain does some fire damage to something" or "the most hurt character does melee damage to the least hurt" bonuses and penalties are going to come into play a lot when otherwise the math's going to be consistent, so, that's a little neat?
It also feels like all of these decks have at least a splash of "let a friend play a card or use a power" to the point where in my second test game I had this absolutely bonkers baton passing combo on turn ONE where I burned through like 30 different cards. Might be a fluke but if you wanna do crazy juggle combos, this is the set for it.
Also every hero in the deck comes with an alternate hero card like the promos and that's just a really efficient replay value add.
Characters, difficulty 1:
Captain Thunder- Kinda one of those beefy types who just kinda takes a big swing each turn. Which hey that's fine, it's nice to have the truly basic option.
Bowman- I've got a bow and a lot of gimmick arrows which mainly let me discard stuff for extra damage and I get enough extra draws to feed that. A nice consistent damage dealer.
Johnny Rocket- Feels like he should be difficulty 2. Half his cards are "momentum" where you get a nice little bonus and add to a resource stack, the other half burn cards off that stack for bonus stuff. Speedster theme so you do a lot, and one momentum card of which there's multiples lets someone else fish any equipment card out of their deck and put it immediately into play, which is absurdly good for some people.
Lady Liberty- One of those heal/buff types, which are dull, but plays a bit more actively than say, Legacy, so that's nice.
Star Knight- I don't think the difficulty is wrong here, which is odd because the concept feels like a more advanced character's. You've got a big fancy set of space armor, and you're kinda constantly throwing chunks of it away to make explosions which you boost by putting your discards on the bottom of your deck, and then fishing your gear back, which is also nice gear. It's an odd flow.
Difficulty 2 characters:
Siren- Pretty neat. Lots of give friends extra actions, and lots of "here is a global effect that gives everyone a real harsh penalty." One of these prevents any HP restoration which I think technically as written lets you do speedruns on any villains who flip at 0 HP for a true form as written.
The Raven- Another obviously Batman but a girl, but they avoided the easy way out of just reskinning Wraith. Basically has equipment/one-shot hybrid cards where you have meh gear you can trash for decent damage, usually split into multiple hits/elements.
Doctor Metropolis- So concept wise he's like, a ghost that possesses a whole city, or maybe just a sentient city, that just repositions stuff to thwart people all Dark City style. Mechanically, you are constantly spamming out swarms of 5 HP minions in the form of like street signs that tie people up or dead ends denying actions to mooks, which lose HP over time, but can be healed en masse. So... basically he's a hero who plays like a villain deck and that is just really really neat. And takes up a ton of table space if nothing's doing area damage.
Difficulty 3 villains:
Daedalus- Literally the Greek mythology guy, just being immortal and also Ironman. All about equipment cards to make his flying power armor go higher and be more awesome, with the caveat that using all the good powers makes you draw cards, and if you ever go over 7 everything explodes. Also has some stuff to just burn a turn discarding down for safety. So first off, yes, great theming, love it. Also it's really interesting strategy wise to kinda flip the script on hand size management.
Pseudo- Pseudo sucks. Worst hero ever. Shapeshifter where you have a whole bunch of mutually exclusive form cards that do a thing on play and also at the end of your turn, and you're basically forced to play at least one a round. But then like.... the only powers you get are fishing for more form cards, and only a couple deal damage, and you basically don't end up actually doing much of anything. Sad because the same basic concept was done really well with Bunker in the original release.
Also one of the villains is Hades, matching with Daedalus there, who has the really quite novel mechanical deal of foisting Faustian deals on heroes where you get a legitimately good perk, but also a contract card which when destroyed absolutely trashes your stuff, and if you just leave them out, he collects a bunch and flips. Just feels really different.
So yeah, overall I'm quite happy to have spent... however much money I spent on this what literally feels like a lifetime ago.
And yeah, totally compatible with normal Sentinels if you want two shameless Batman-but-girls to team up or whatever.
