Mauve Manticore #15

Thread for MM #15 praises / curses and advice.

Level 1: Firepower by @adajon

Lost one servant at the first round due to Trip. Lost another one a bit later for the same reason. Other than that, it's all about patience. Managed to win at round 7. Nice concept, but a bit tedious / repetitive in my opinion.


Level 2: A Philosophical Discussion by @Vlamona

The pre-description made me laugh. The carpets were pretty, but the blue one was a bit confusing, since usually water tiles are impassable.

It seems staying in the middle is not such a good idea. Lost on round 5 the first time. Second time I lost the Jelly quite early, but fortunately my Burning Skeleton drew Only Bones and I was able to tank most of the attacks. On round 10 I managed to wipe out last of the Golems and Armed Skeletons, but the remaining Creeper got my Acid Fiend. My MVP avenged the death with Reaching Swing and Burning Blade and I won on round 11.

Tough battle, I like idea of using immunity granting armors and pairing them against suitable enemies. This is like a harder version of the earlier MM #13 adventure Circus Camp.

The aftermath description was really funny too!


Level 3: Spider Hunt by @BlackVoidDeath

Really nice to get a chance to play with Rumbling Mutants. Radioactive Pulse chain-reactions were fun! I lost one Rumbling Mutant, but won quite easily on round two.

 

I thought this was a fun MM! A big variety of maps and they all had their own little strategies to employ, very enjoyable!

Got lucky on the first map by not having any mess-ups with Trip. I did end up losing two Servants due to carelessness with lines of sight and I was getting close to the turn limit. It's a bit annoying how the Security Bots' targeting seems mostly random as are the odds of Gary passing so it does rely more an AI manipulation than I'd like. I was also somewhat disappointed that defeating the Turret didn't do anything to help me, it took me some time to realize it was acting randomly rather than trying to hit my Servants.

Second map reminds me of a previous map with the combination of Only Bones, Amorphous Body and a character with lots of movement options. Still a fun map, I suspect I got a bit lucky at times. When it was down to my 3 characters against 2 Creepers I knew I had won so by then it just became a matter of wearing down their HP. It's fun to play with Acid Fiends, you don't get a good idea of how effective they can be when the AI controls them.

Same for the third map! Being able to control Rumbling and Gunner Mutants shows just how deadly their cards can be when used by a human. I didn't get much done with the large Mutant, but playing around with Rumbling Charge, Shotgun Sprays and especially Rad Pulse was fun. Ended up winning without losing any units, but using Rad Pulse in the middle of a group of enemies and seeing tons of expansion handicaps was rather fun.

Nice rewards for completing the module as well, I like this AA's winners!

 

They aren't actually water tiles—they're Acq Inc blue carpet (as seen in AI 1.1 and 1.2).

 

I personally hated the AI manipulation required to win the first map, especially since it wouldn't cooperate consistently. I played it multiple times (some legitimate losses, mostly restarting due the Bots' terrible behavior eating up too much time), and repeatedly watched the Bots get gun shy and refuse to fire on a servant for rounds at a time, even when it was the only character in the cone. They simply were not aggressive enough to make the scenario fun.

Two was good. It was very close for me (the Jelly never drew Amorphous Body, and so died early), and I agree that getting out of the center is vital to success.

Third map was fun. Spiders got smashed. A radioactive pulse suicide chained with a few damage-on-death handicaps obliterated most of the spiders in a single move on turn 3 or 4, and Rumbling Charge swept up the rest.

 

Part 1 ~ Firepower
Fun map and requiring some strategic placement to make the bots blast eachother. Its different from everything else i'v seen.
It wasnt hard and I beat it first try - even though I had not played it the first time it was posted to the forums.

Part 2 ~ A Philosophical Discussion
Similar to one of the precious MM maps but a bit different due to the fact that we are defending rather than moving around.
I am sure that if the enemy had even one character with a few acid cards in their deck it would get a lot harder!
Again I beat it without any issues, but it was a good idea to make this sort of scenario again.

Part 3 ~ Spider Hunt
Hurray! My map again!
I cant really say much of it - its easy to start with but if you lose both of your Rumbling Mutants or Gunners (which is highly unlikely) it becomes harder to fight the invisible spiders near the end.
To be honest this map was really just mad for chaos and chaos only - spiders crawling over you while you try shooting them!
When I often got bit by radioactive spiders I drew TWO AI cards:

Spoiler: The cards

They just added to the hype for me

 

Firepower - Brilliant concept, but a bit finicky. I don't think it could have been made much/any better, but the AI makes it a bit dependent on luck (whether or not they decide to fire). Perhaps a normal laser turret and more stars for the enemy to collect would have made it require more skill. Still a good challenge.

A Philosophical Discussion - Liked the story behind it. A bit dependent on draws, I'd imagine; the skelly got only bones so it was easy enough.

Spider Hunt - Very easy, quite fun though.

 

Firepower
Not too bad, since I've done similar things in regular EttSC modules. Won it on the first try, though only 1 servant was left alive.

Philosophical
ARRRGGHHH! This took me eight tries! Of those eight battles, I got Only Bones only once.

Spiders
Yeah this was pretty easy, just nuke the map.

 

@adajon @Vlamona @BlackVoidDeath

Map 1: (whee i'm not doing this one right i'm sure)


Map 2+3:

 

Map 1: I wasn't a big fan of it. There seems like a luck component with trip and fumble. Sometimes the AI just wouldn't shoot itself despite me offering 3 servants to 'kill'. Energising the turret is also dangerous and purely luck based, it'll turn to face you on use and if it has an attack card. Pewpew. I also didn't like that every square was victory terrain with no indication -anywhere-. If I had known that the map would have been much easier.

Map 2: A fun practice of abusing the unique armours you're given for this map. Probably a bit too easy considering that. I had no problems.

Map 3: Seemed like a no brainer map to me, but playing as those nutty constantly charging meat mutants was extremely fun. Didn't even have to use the Hell Mantis for anything, seemed a bit surplus. Would have been happy with just the mutants.

 

Firepower: Hey, I really liked it, but I like puzzle based MMs in general, the puzzle here being to maneuvre your servants so that the robots stay in the centre of the map with the turret (and allowing you to turn the turret towards them with energize). It was tense, especially before any of the robots get taken down and they have crazy LOS everywhere - moving the servants through that felt a bit like the spy film cliche where the hero has to negotiate a room full of trip lasers.

A Philosophical Discussion: I think a lot of players will find this one difficult - it's a 12-on-3 pileon, after all. Won it by holing up in a corner, protected by moats of acid, while I used the ranged attacks to take out gnolls, but only when they had mad dog active and were standing in a group of allies. Then it's a matter of armour defeating the attacks of the survivors.

Spider Hunt: Very easy but damn, it was fun while it lasted. If you want a bit more of a challenge, aim for 'no deaths' - who wouldn't want to bring all those beautiful mutants home in one piece?

 

MM 15 map 1 is the worst map ever.
@whoever designed this : it's not clever, it's just boring (and sorry if I sound agressive)

 

Just beat this tonight. Let's seeeeeee...

Firepower: The first time I tried this the other day, I Tripped, got shot, mulled around a bit, and generally fared terribly while the laz0rs burned me to smithereens. I was so bad, I decided to try it another day; I figured even with AI-bundle Club, I'd be better off getting extra loot from elsewhere, lol. Tonight, I tried a second time. I had everything down pretty far, only two robots left, when the 3-HP-er left the center to chase my servant. Next round, Trip, but at least he got in an armorless Weak Strike before he went down. $E^ D From there, I started to get them arranged again I'm just so used to the TT turrets (with their default Clumsy), that I didn't even think about Energize making the thing face me, and it shot down my last man standing. Kinda painful there. Especially since I'd used it earlier to take out a robot. The third time, I continued my tactic of letting the robots chase me, putting multiple servants in los to entice them to shoot, and eventually trying to get **far out of los** before the round would end so that I might recover from Tripping. The things just wouldn't chase me the right way, thus it took several rounds before I could get them to really shoot at each other any -- but at least I was keeping everyone alive (aside from one poor sap I missed los on). However, that last beautiful round, I managed to dance back and forth in place while one robot decided to open fire at me repeatedly, to open fire on every one of its allies repeatedly. Quadruple kill for the win! Lol! Ridiculous. $:^ b The final closing text about what the servants grabbed was pretty well perfect since I expect many people would play and beat this after having already hit high renown, therefore likely looting only Citadel stuff, ha ha ha ha, nice.

A Philosophical Discussion: Yeah, the opening and closing texts were awesome. Like others have said, the Immunity armors were fun again. The Skeletons carrying the anti-Only Bones attack was scary, though. $8^ | On my first try, I TK'd the Jelly outside, let it throw Mud into one corner and Slime into another then Walk back in, and otherwise stayed inside exclusively, letting my Skeleton tank the one door while my Acid Fiend fortified the place, TK'ing out a Gnarl once it finally got in past everything, etc. But then the Bronze Golem breached the line. And the Skeletons. I finally retreated out of there, and unfortunately, while setting up some more nice kills, I accidentally forgot about Mad Dog and let my Acid Fiend die for no good reason. $:^ \ At that point, I believe I still had a Creeper (on the other side), two Skeleton Warriors (sitting in Acid inside), and a Gnarl (Acid inside), plus maybe that Bronze Golem. I took them out, but it took a lot more dancing. The final one I worried about was the Creeper -- mainly because I couldn't remember what kinds of attacks it carried. $E^ b Once it revealed enough of its deck, I kept my Skeleton on it and my Jelly at range 2, hitting it with no damage over and over again. The Slime attack helped once or twice, but the final round came when my Acid removed its Bark *and* it didn't redraw any. Fiery Stabs ahoy! $:^ P

Spider Hunt: Great! Kinda fun opening text; same with closing text. My Mantis got Halted early on. It got to use a Staggering Blow and two Acid Pools but otherwise just sat there watching. $:^ b lol Playing as these creatures against all the spider types was a blast. Most my chars came really close to dying -- especially with one Rad Pulse to hit several enemies and no allies -- but as usual, the Radiation gave some pretty funny results. Friendly Fire! lol Plus Demonic Revenge which I think killed off one. $E^ b Also, I drew Retaliatory Mutation at some point, thus I let the Rad Spiders come. $}^ } When I bit one with a Rad Bite, oh wow $8^ | it got Obvious Maneuver and showed a hand full of like eight Rad Bites. $8^ | Anyway, we all survived, one at 1 HP, and our mutant community benefited greatly from our sixth Ankle Grinder, second Pressing Problems, and first Mad Centaur's Spear. $:^ ] Too bad my AI-bundle Club only got me 20 gold by way of some epic boots I'd already maxed out. ha ha ha ha

Good stuff, everyone! Thanks to all involved -- scenario creators, volunteer testers I'm sure, AA item creators, and of course BM. $:^ ]

 

Join us again next month in MM16!
Featuring:

• A map from BVD with spiders!
• A map from Vlamona with skeletons and/or Acid Fiends that will have to do with armor immunities!
  
• A map by someone else that will involve lots of moving!

Aside from joking, I enjoyed this MM, especially the 1st battle.

 

What are the odds of that?

Spoiler

 

By the way, i din't pay attention to it before i had a wish to complete MM15, and now when i'm ready for it - i can't find it on map.



MM 14 completed, but no MM15 .
How do i find 15th of MM?

Dont scare me to complete all of the 13 previous=))) They give no rewards=))

 

Most MMs unlock backwards. Completing MM 16, should unlock MM15. Unclompeted MMs stay visible only as long as they're the latest instalment.

 

Very new to me, thanks for info!

 

Hi all. New to the game, and this one is driving me crazy. I've spent far too much time trying to get the right mix of my own hand RNG and praying for the robots to shoot me. I see some other users note that Energize does something in this mission, but can't figure it out and maybe that's my problem. How do you use that card? I've always been tossing it and cursing that I drew that and not something helpful like a move.

 

Some monsters can only play once card per turn (not counting move cards). When they have played that card they turn grey. Energize makes a grey monster not-grey, so that they can play another card that turn.

 

I was attempting to target the respawning turret with Energize but thats not working for working for me. Could I be doing something wrong??? It only appears I can target the fellow humans.