Nightmare in Silver: Mr Clever

This looks promising

Previous Episode: Nightmare in Silver: Stalemate

Next Episode: Asylum of the Daleks: Graveyard

Game version played: 2.2.1

The last episode was interesting with new powers to face, but none of your team levelled up. Maybe Act 3 of Nightmare In Silver (NIS) will fix that. Let’s put these Cybermen to bed.

The scene of the battle will be Natty Longshoe’s Comical Castle, where Clara and the Punishment Platoon holed up to fight off the Cybermen. The art is nice and spooky, is that a Dalek on the hoarding alongside the bridge? Nah!

We can see that this is another TV episode where you can win Black and Red time fragments. I’m hoping for Black as that cupboard is bare. The portrait of a chap in a leather flying helmet with '100% Drop' written above it looks promising too. Select the episode and confirm your team, which for me is the Eleventh Doctor at Rank 1, Madame Vastra and Jenny Flint both at Lv.2.

The carnage begins, and once again you only have Blue, Yellow, Red and Pink gems to match. First up you are faced with a Red and a Yellow Cyberman. The Yellow chap has the Lock ability but you’re a veteran of that so you know what to do. For me this first wave was no issue and I was rewarded for their destruction with a Time Crystal, taking my total up to 3. 

Wave 2 consists of three Green Cybermites. No special powers but one attacks every round so show no mercy. Again I saw these off quickly, this time getting a Green Time Fragment as bounty. 

Wave 3 next, and you have two Red and a Yellow Cyberman wanting to upcycle your brain. Two of them have Lock so they may clog your board up a little but you're tough, you can handle them. 

The final wave sees the return of Mr Clever, who obviously survived the beating you gave him in the last episode. He's better tooled up this time, able to attack or use his Mine power every round. Mine works just the same as Grab did in the previous episode, removing all gems of one colour from the board. In my match the Doctor was now ready to use his Cunning, and even though Blue is weak against Green, Seven-of-Nine-Doctor was soon just a memory. 

As Mr Clever is vanquished, you will see a greyed out portrait fall. The Doctor steps forward and introduces Ludens Nimrod Kendrick Cord Longstaff the 41st, also known as Porridge. Pleasantries are exchanged and the episode ends. 

Now this episode does deliver significant goodies. Madame Vastra and Jenny Flint now both have enough experience to reach Lv.3. When levelling up I gave them both an extra point on ATK, which is not generally accepted wisdom in Jenny's case, but it's my game and I don't care.

Warwick Davis, looking young
Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic

I had my Time Crystal and Green Time Fragment to fondle of course, but the real prize here is Porridge. He's a Black character so you now have 4 of the 5 available colours covered. Check his stats and you will see that he has very high HP at 103. This makes him a Tank character. Remember that your team pools its HP, so having a Tank on the team means that you all last longer in a fire-fight. 

Porridges special ability is called Shift at this level, and when used Porridge lays a bomb against one enemy. This detonates after 5 turns, doing a very respectable 1000 damage. In the next few episodes this will vaporise any opponent, and in higher levels leaves them badly wounded. A key weapon in your arsenal. 

If you leave it to Porridge, then he'll place the bomb against the strongest remaining enemy. However if you target one opponent then he will mine them instead. Getting the biggest bang for your buck takes some tactical thinking. If the bomb is laid on a weak opponent that is first in the line of fire i.e. on the left of the screen, then that opponent is likely to be dead before the bomb goes off, in which case it is wasted. Often the best thing to do is wait for the start of the next wave and bomb the baddest one facing you. The cool down for Shift is a hefty 10 turns, so you may even want to think about saving it for the final Boss wave. Abilities don't go stale so you can keep Porridge primed as long as you like. Don't waste him. 

Porridge was played in NIS by Warwick Davis who comes across as a cracking bloke and has a sci-fi/fantasy CV many would kill for. His comedy acting is bob on, making Life's Too Short so cringeworthy that I couldn't watch it. I hope that isn't the last we'll see of the Emperor. I'd love to see him turn Clara's head and get the girl.