Let's Play Mewgenics: The Bad Care Run

[Shifter55]

Okay, after a bit of a break we are diving back into this. Sorry for the delay as I have been handling other hobbies and games for the post 2 months.


We sent the doctor one of our cats that hasn't really been breeding, and acquired our first sidequest item! The Persuasion device will be quite helpful once we have unlocked the end of the new path The Desert provides. But it seems our exploration has attracted attention! After a week, we get a very loud housecall...

It's time to defend the house, so we take Fred, Newman, Winni, and Arianna to meet our first House Boss.
Party Stats:
Tank Fred
Finger Bone
Bandage
Breakfast
Swap
Bodyguard
Clap
Fault line
Chain Knockback
Epiphany
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
Stockholm Syndrome

Fighter Newman
Cheese
Rusting Helmet
Spring
Dart
Confront
BBQ
Sleeper Hold
Shoulder Check
Underdog
Eating Disorder

Hunter Winni
Cheese
Boxing Charm
Muzzle
Strange Marble
Block
Invert
Needle Shot
Picnic
Brood Mother
Quiver
Acid Reflux
The Shining

Mage Arianna
Les Toxin
Human Brain
Find a Rock
Inspire
Inferno
Five

For this team we won't be running Fred's usual antics, as Guillotina is too large to trample, instead maximising HP regen for normal tanking. Newman will be providing melee support and sleep debuffs to ensure enemy turns are wasted, while Winni and Arianna will be casting their AOE attacks and restoring HP and mana when needed. Cheese will help a lot in this fight too, as it lets us bring more fragile cats than we otherwise would recommend.

...And she's on fire, that scuppers our Inferno plans. At least we can still poison her, but this elite buff may be an issue...

We pull Fred out of the melee with needle shot and heal him with picnic, while adding more mana to Newman's pool using inspire, which leads to the boss tossing Arianna out of her abilities' range!

As Newman is set to take a lot of burn damage, Fred uses groom to clear that, before we pull him back to Winni to heal him again with picnic. Despite immobilising her, she can still jump around, meaning Newman is a little far away from the rest of the team, but bodyguard allows Fred to swap him back into formation and let us refill his mana.

The picnicking and inspiring continues, and Winni's mana leech is finally high enough to fill her cap every turn, so we focus on Newman for mana refills. As Fred and Newman are old, exhaustion is about to kick in too, so we will have to redouble our healing efforts!

With Confront, 'Tina's throws do very little, and we are able to continue hitting her, finally pissing her off. A leap scatters our party, and interrupts our support tactic, and leaves Arianna vulnerable. A quick bodyguard isn't enough as Fred is inhaled and she knocks the mage down!

The rest of the party falls soon after, with just Winni left to fight, we have big problems! The inhale prevents using abilities, so getting stuck in the boss's stomach removes our healing... and that's a defeat for us.

As the house boss claims our 4 unfortunate defenders, we now have another timer to deal with. According to the wiki House Bosses return after 10 days for a rematch if not defeated. So now we have to balance that with waiting for cats to contract disorders, and our food supply!

Because of this, we're going to try using smaller teams of cats, going no further than the 2nd chapter of an act. Our new necromancer collar should help with this, as the class is specialised in ranged support and healing. But with no food and cats starving, we send out a party of 4 to refill our supply.

Party Stats:
Mage Avril
Jester Cap
Muzzle
Number One
Mega Blast
Ice Aspect

Tank Put Put
Metabolize
Body Guard
Thorns
Stinky

Necromancer Samanta
Hop
Soul Link
Burning Paws
Worm Lord

Cleric Sir Packet Lossalot
Mind Stone
Copycat
Hallowed Ground
Thou Shalt Not Kill

With the reduced stats from starvation, I was not expecting much from this party, but we got Soul Link, Worm Lord, and Thou Shalt Not Kill, this combo should give us very good damage against multiple targets whenever an enemy attacks the leeches that fall off our necro. Mindstone and Copycat make our cleric a lot more flexible than usual, with Hallowed ground giving us a source of shield.
Our tank Put Put is a fairly standard thorn/bodyguard setup, and even though Stinky isn't really useful being the 2nd fastest cat in the party should minimise the downside of forced movement.

The first two fights aren't too bad, but our lack of decent stats and damage beyond Mega Blast makes things somewhat dicey, especially against champion Mangies. Our cleric and necro do manage to get some nice abilities though, BBQ and Full Moon for additional healing opportunities!

Party changes:
Tank Put Put
+Bulletprof Vest

Necromancer Samanta
+Leather Mask
+Full Moon

Cleric Sir Packet Lossalot
+Rubber Bat
+BBQ

As the miniboss has the depressing buff, our mage is in some serious trouble, but with Maisie we can push the kittens around to manage that. However two fleas have also shown up, making it harder to avoid a first turn downing... however, Ice aspect saves her with it's freezing effect. Our other cats serve to body block the southeast for the time being.

Stinky pushes our cleric out of formation, so we can't do more than claim some more food on his turn. Once again we use the miniboss's swap to minimise damage from the kittens, and set up to keep our mage safe.

Unfortunately a series of swaps by our spawned leechs allows a kitten to down her, but Maisie has taken enough damage that our cleric can hop over and finish her! With no protection, the last kitten is easy prey for our necromancer. As our mage is down to 2 CON from the injuries taken this fight, we're swapping the Bulletproof Vest to her to avoid any more. Don't take cats with 3 CON on adventures if you can!

Taking the hard path, we come across more Mangies, but our team makes short work of them with Bodyguard and recoil effects from ice. From their corpses, we find... well we hope it is Cheese, that should solve our CON problems on Avril. Sadly the shop doesn't have anything of interest, and even the rare candy doesn't provide an interesting ability.

Party changes:
Mage Avril
+Cheese
+Bulletproof Vest
+Mushrooms
+Decompose

Tank Put Put
-Bulletprof Vest
+Creepy Photo
+Rottiserie Chicken
+Randomise

Necromancer Samanta
+Jar of Leeches

Cleric Sir Packet Lossalot
+Thou Shalt Not Covet


Thankfully the boss is a lucky Radical Rat, and we can handle the bombs with all but our necromancer. We push forward, popping Mushrooms to improve Avril's CON and striking the turkey that also showed up. Sadly the second Rat Bomb gets Randomised onto a Lava tile, instantly exploding it and doing severe damage!

2nd round, we manage to get some healing and bomb management in. But after our mage does some damage, the rat tosses a bomb into the fire and downs her yet again!

Using Hop we are able to take our Necro back into range, upping the Burn on the boss to 5, which should be enough to take them down this round. As the fire cooks the rat, our cleric mops up some coins before dealing the killing blow.


With Avril's low CON and the relatively poor performance of this party, we're choosing to go home and safeguard the gathered supplies. Unfortunately Sir Packet Lossalot will not be staying with us, as the two birth defects he has acquired penalise stats harshly (-2 CON, DEX).