Sentinels of the Multiverse: Infernal Relics
Expansion Overview
Infernal Relics is the second expansion to the Sentinels of the Multiverse card game, and includes two new heroes “Nightmist” and “The Argent Adept, ” four new Villains: “Akash’bhuta,” Apostate,” “Gloomweaver,” and “The Ennead.” As well as two new Environments: “The Realm of Discord,” and The Tomb of Anubis.” New mechanics include new mechanics for magical abilities or spells, and a unique multi-layered musical mechanic used by the Argent Adept hero. Let’s pull aside the veil of mystery and discover more!
Heroes
Nightmist
Employing the power of magical energies, Nightmist is a very powerful ally. She also uses mysterious relics to channel her powers. But she must use her magical resources wisely or succumb to defeat.
See her story here >
The Argent Adept
The master musician whose powers swirl and ignite like a fiery symphony. The Argent Adept uses Instruments to coordinate melodies, harmonies and rhythms to fight for good.
See his story here >
Villains
Akash’bhuta
A towering entity of nature nearly unlimited destructive power whose primeval limbs strike out to crush the heroes and the prime material plane itself. She is immense and unrelenting – Mother Nature at her worst.
Learn more about this villain >
Apostate
A dark winged fiend from the infernal planes, Apostate employs the work of evil relics, dark energies and insidious fiends such as demons and imps to do his bidding. Neither subtle nor safe, Apostate uses Infernal damage against the heroes to wipe them out.
Learn more about this villain >
Gloomweaver
The stuff of nightmares, Gloomweaver animates the dead and long forgotten nightmares to wreak havoc. Voodoo, and cultist minions do his bidding. A nightmare of a villain to face…literally.
Learn more about this villain >
The Ennead
Nine ancient Egyptian deities: Set, Isis, Atum, Geb, Nephthys, Nuit, Osiris, Shu, and Tefnut, commanding powerful magic and relics that create a nearly unstoppable vengeful force against the heroes. They are relentless.
Learn more about these villains >
Environments
The Tomb of Annubis
This deadly tomb hides traps, mummies and ancient trials to test the heroes. Failure means the Environment will unleash it worst on the heroes. Pass these ancient trials and you will be rewarded. A truly insidious environment.
Learn more about this environment >
Realm of Discord
A chaotic plane in some other dimension, dangerous energies and ethereal hazards abound. This environment features Distortion cards that twist reality – and the rules of the game. An amazing and difficult deck.
Learn more about this environment >
New Mechanics
Magic: Magic takes the form of Spell points that can be found on Nightmist’s cards. Each spell icon contains a numbered value. The cards and key abilities and powers of Nightmist’s magic are keyed to these numbers. When a power or ability requires her to spend spell points, they must be used from her available points in hand. The card interactions and combos can be formidable. But careful management of the spell resources is required.
Perform and Accompany: The Argent Adept uses music to focus his powers. Within his deck, Perform and Accompany abilities can be activated by his power, or by using instruments. These activate three types of powerful ongoing cards: Melodies, Harmonies and Rhythms. This mechanic is specific to his deck making him a unique and challenging hero to play.
Final Thoughts
Infernal Relics brings into the world of Sentinel Comics the less corporeal and mysterious powers of the netherworlds. Two very powerful heroes join the ranks in this expansion. But both Nightmist and The Argent Adept are quite difficult to play without becoming familiar with the hero decks. They depend on careful management of resources and a working knowledge of the mechanics that make them work. That said, they are two of the best designed heroes to date.
Of the Villains in the set, each presents their own formidable set of challenges, but The Ennead and Gloomweaver really pack a punch – even without their advanced abilities. Akash’bhuta is just huge and may become frustrating if the Environment gets too tricky. But with patience, the heroes will win the day. Even the Environments seem to compliment this set with unpredictable and unnerving effects that typify a realm beyond our own reality. Twisted reality is what this expansion is all about. Mixed in with the current heroes and Villains, Infernal Relics broadens the Sentinels game experience in a fresh and formidable way.
Disclaimer: BoardGaming.com received a complimentary review copy of this game
User Reviews (5)
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I managed to pick up this expansion and the base game at PAX Prime recently and I’ve been loving it ever since.
The expansion, much like Rook City, comes with 4 new villains, 2 new environments and 2 new heroes. Let’s look at each of these in turn.
The four new villains are all around a medium difficulty. On the new enhanced edition scale, these villains are all around the 2-3 (out of a current maximum of four) range. The villains all have cool mechanics that make them fun to battle against. For example, Akash’Bhuta starts off with a whopping 200 HP but produces minions that reduce her HP when they are defeated. In addition, she has is one of the first villains to truly integrate with the environment deck. Depending on her side, you’ll be playing extra villain cards or environment cards when the other decks (villain or environment) cards are removed.
The others, Apostate, Gloomweaver, and the Ennead are all different and challenging in their own rights. I won’t post any spoilers about them, but they each have their own set of unique challenges (Apostate, who should be a bit easier, wiped us in 4 rounds!)
The environments included in this set are all well done. The Tomb of Anubis feels like a journey through an ancient pyramid, complete with traps, rewards and terrors. The Realm of Discord feels like a trippy alternate dimension where the very laws of physics are challenged. Both environments actually have a few cards to benefit players which always makes the environments fun and dynamic.
Lastly, the heroes. The heroes in this set are both quite difficult to play with (which affects this expansion’s easy to learn rating). The Argent Adept is a support character who can do a large variety of tasks if set up right. He has a very low ability to do direct damage but has healing powers, the ability to increase or decrease targets damage, etc. He’s a very thematic character as well and is a blast to play. Be warned though as he’s currently the hero with the lowest starting HP which puts him at risk quite often in the game.
Nightmist is the second new hero and has an interesting magic ability. Each of her cards have a special “magic” number which is used to calculate the strength of some of her powers. For example, she can discard a card to regain X HP where X is the magic number on that card. Nightmist also can output a steady stream of damage to the opponent but typically at the cost of damage to herself and the team. In a recent game, I did 7 damage to all enemy targets on the first turn but at the cost of 3 damage to all of the heroes. She’s very fun to use and I’ve only started to delve into how to use her character to its fullest potential.
Overall, I really enjoy this expansion. For me, the villains are the stars of this show with an excellent arrangement of different, unique villain with interesting mechanics. They each play differently and feel great thematically.
If you’re currently a Sentinels of the Multiverse fan, get this set for the villains and environments alone. While the heroes may be more difficult to use (use Absolute Zero as your comparison point for difficulty), they are well done and useful additions.
Argent Adept is amazing! This is a more complex hero to play but when you figure him out he can be a beast.
The Ennead is a very fun Villain group to fight against. If you let them hang around too long they all start causing havoc, then the heroes are in trouble. I love the play off the ancient Egypt mythology with this group of Villains. I always seem to use RA when fighting these guys.
Gloomweaver is a little weak, but the great thing about this game is you can make small “house rules” adjustments to the setup that can make a Villain as tough as you want.
Excellent expansion.
Infernal Relics is the second expansion to Sentinels and, although the Villains were kind of disappointing, the Heroes included do some cool stuff that makes them stand out from the others.
The villains aren’t any more difficult than what you’ve seen before, they are simply there for variety, and if you already have the base game and Rook City, the you don’t feel the increased variety for the game as a whole. One of my favorite heroes in the base game is Sub-Zero because he does damage to himself sometimes but does more damage to the opponent. The heroes in this expansion do oddball things as well. Argent Adept does a lot of ongoing effects that boost the other heroes and has abilities that boost specific things that you may need for a particular turn, like frost damage, especially useful when teamed up with Sub-Zero.
The other hero in this expansion is Nightmist. She’s cool just in her looks alone, but she also does damage to herself to get cards, and then her cards have the extra expense of some of the remaining cards in her hand, which is awesome. She’s got an awesome amount of control over the field and has replaced Sub-Zero as my favorite.
The environments are okay, but I don’t usually have a preference for which environment is played anyway.
Overall, good expansion, definitely worth it if you are a fan of the game. If you are bored with the base game and are looking to breath new life into it, I don’t think this expansion can do it alone, but with Rook City it’s certainly possible. However, then you run the risk of having bought TWO expansions for a game you found you still don’t really like, so choose wisely.
For more info, check out my reviews on the base game and Rook City on my homepage.
While a different in many ways from the SotM Rook City expansion, it is an intriguing and well-thought out addition to the game line. The heroes grow in complication, but this only adds to the need for dynamic, communicative, interactive gameplay. And, as with any Batman film, the villains are the crowning centerpiece. Diverse and complicated, each provides a new challenge for the heroes to strategize and overcome. Act quickly on ordering these expansions because, while worth it, they are in demand!
This expansion brings more of the great heros and villians (and locations) for you to use with your other Sentinels of the Multiverse cards.
The new heros and villians continue the tradition of bringing interesting abilities and cool combos to the game that have been seen in previous sets. This set also brought alternative vllian cards for the first time which also breaths new life into some of the older enemies!