Saturday 8 September 2018

The Rogues- thoughts

To follow up from my earlier post on the Flash family, I'm now covering their opposites in the Rogues. I will be discussing all versions of Captain Cold, Captain Boomerang, and Heatwave, before going in depth on the existing villain Speedsters as well down the line.
 The obvious starting point of the Rogues, we have their traditional leader Captain Cold. Cold is a great support piece with his traits, and also provides great ranged threat with his Cold Gun. He can be a Free Agent to any villain crew bar Joker and League of Assassins, but also as a Sidekick in a Mr Freeze. This is how I personally use him most, leading a predominately Rogues themed crew, but he slots in excellently in many cases.
Offensively
Captain Cold excels in situations where he isn't in close range fighting himself, preferring to take a more backline approach with his ranged weapons. Ranged Master on his RoF2 double blood gun means he is hitting fairly reliably, and it being a Beam with Accurate and Cold means he is a tailor made Acrobat hunter, or anyone with Dodge. Medium Range allows him to shoot at models while he is still relatively safe early on, and Cold as a weapon trait plays quite well into Heatwave, as losing movement counters means a greater chance they can't remove Fire. This weapon mode has 3 ammo, meaning he can be shooting it for half the game, but his other alternate fire mode is also very good. The full power mode of his Cold Gun, it's main differences are Ice Template (punishing for low movement models) and Aim. Aim on this mode isn't all that bad, because at Short Range you likely won't use it until models are closing in anyway, using the Ice Template to stop an advance. It also sacrifices 1RoF for an extra stun damage, meaning you can clip a few models for more damage on this hit, but the main intention is for them to be taking agility rolls from the template, and hopefully being Knocked Down.
Defensively
In terms of defence, Cold doesn't have anything special really. Defence 4 endurance 7 is a solid stat block for his cost, but as a Free Agent one needs to play carefully. In a Mr Freeze crew he benefits from Prisoner 4, and the Bodyguard here I feel is pretty essential.
Overall
Cold's trait list is suited towards a midfield firebase, providing henchmen with some great potential support, and dealing out a good amount of damage himself. Leadership is great against Mind Control models, and Order helps get out of potential misplays with counters. Mastermind is always good to have, but his greatest trait for his cost is Strategist. The extra strategy point really just sets off his whole card
Best crews
Cold is obviously keyed into a Mr Freeze crew through being a Sidekick, although it is not the best choice to run both him and Freeze together. The Freeze crew already seriously struggles with funding, introducing the $400 Cold into it just adds to the problem. He provides an excellent kit for it, but it's expensive to do. As a boss, Cold is great, not costing any funding at all for all the toys he brings. He naturally also plays off of Heatwave in any crew, but the place Cold really shines is in Organised Crime. The tools he has play off any henchman mob well, but Joker that isn't an option, and Penguin in general has fallen to the wayside a bit. OC, on the other hand, he is maximising his potential skill set, while also being an offensive piece
To round off the TV Rogues, Heatwave is a very good all rounder, and provides a lot to any crew he is included in. He doesn't have any buffs for other models, but as a damage dealer he can do a lot of work to clear models, and he is decently tanky for his cost. Def 3 is on the lower end, but at endurance 8 for 65 points, he takes a kicking. He works for the same crews as his partner, Captain Cold, so no Joker or League here either!
Offensively
Heatwave is pretty obvious in his naming, he has a flamethrower and he burns things. The actual damage on it is in multiple bands, as it is a 1st edition card, but it is more than capable of dealing great damage on its own, especially so when you add in other models. He also has attack 4 with Reinforced Gloves, meaning that he can lay the fists on when he needs to, something which is a great addition in a worst case scenario.
Defensively
Heatwave lacks many "traditional" defensive abilities, but he has some more interesting corner case traits that can be useful in certain situations. He has Escape Artist, meaning he is immune to Grab, but at defence 3 with no Martial Artist grabs aren't all that useful anyway. He is relatively easy to hit, but at endurance 8 and Sturdy he has the potential to hang around for quite a while, and be a pain while he's still alive.
Overall
There's not much else to say about Heatwave, he's a very unsubtle model in what he does. Teamwork/2 Captain Cold is about his only tricky ability, and when Cold is willpower 6 himself it's  something to use very carefully.
Best crews
Heatwave, like all models with Fire, work best when you can deny movement counters being spent. This often means Freeze, although any crew with Killer Frost can do it for a cost, and the synergy with Captain Cold also works well enough in most cases. He is a good general use model, and can find a spot in most of the crews he works for.
 The first Captain Boomerang we're dealing with is the movie version, from Suicide Squad. Simply put, this model is one of the best Free Agents in the game point for point, bringing a ton of value for very low cost. 48 rep and $200 is not a major investment in any regard, and any gang that can use him will likely be able to get value from him
Offensively
This is really where Boomerang shines for his price point, being able to put out reliable ranged damage that ignores Ping!. His Monitoring Device should always be used if you're shooting, unless you are shooting a pingless shot, just because it negates the most prevalent ranged defence in the game. In terms of actual shooting, Master Marksman means he is rerolling misses (keeping him quite accurate). He has 3 ammo as standard, 2 for his Bladed Boomerang and 1 for his LE Boomerang. The Bladed Boomerang keeps him mobile, able to be thrown at full RoF on the move, and at strength 4+ with rerolls is semi-reliable damage. The LE Boomerang is more suited towards a stationary Digger, keeping him static on an ammo to keep arming himself and letting fly. It does slightly more damage, double blood vs blood stun, and is a Firearm so it is far more likely to wound. His best trait offensively though, and the one that is quite hilarious, is Ricochet. The potential to make another whole attack against a second target each turn is huge, and can potentially mean massive amounts of damage output from a quite cheap Free Agent. If you can catch a Bodyguard near their Leader, you can get both, or at the very least nuke a Bodyguard so the rest of the crew can gang up on the Leader. Should he get caught in a bad spot and put into melee, you can also attack with his Melee Boomerangs, which have the same function as his Bladed Boomerangs but lack any rerolls to hit. This is a strictly worse way of playing than simply moving out of B2B and shooting with a Bladed Boomerang, unless it's against a dump character like a Dollotron.
Defensively
Boomer is a bit fragile at defence 3 endurance 5, but that can be expected for his cost. He does bring Elusive, which allows him to spend MC to reroll Ping! rolls, but this is very situational. In general, play it safe with Boomerang. Behind the action is where he wants to be, just like the movie
Overall
This Boomerang is very good as a cheap offensive model, firing away from behind his allies, but he is not a great VP piece. He's only able to score off of Safe Boxes and Loot, so you have to plan around lower VP gain per turn if you actually want Boomerang to score himself, or not have him gaining objective VP at all. That said, as a force multiplier he works incredibly well for offensive crews, being able to shoot into combats without any chance of a Ping! being given away. However, a Riddler bot list can also find a very good spot for him as another shorter ranged piece, preferably to defend the bots and clues.
The comic Boomerang is fairly similar to SS Boomer, gaining +1 endurance, movement and defence and a ton of different tricks, but he costs 34 rep and $150 funding more. It is quite a significant increase in points, but also quite an upgrade overall.
Offensively
This Boomerang is lower in terms of raw shooting power, but he brings along some interesting trick boomerangs, adding up to a whopping 5 ammo, that can help out a crew in many ways. He has Master Marksman like SS Boomer, so he rerolls all missed ranged attacks, but replaces the Monitoring Device for Shooter. This means he is less counter intensive for max damage output, but without Total Vision and Remote Controlled he doesn't have the ability to shoot around corners. The first profile is his melee profile, which as a single blood with sharp is decent enough, but all of his ranged attacks are throwing with rerolls, so why stay in a combat with him? In terms of other weapon profiles, he has the same Blade Boomerang as SS Boomerang as a "standard" (the only one with more than one ammo), but his trick boomerangs are where he starts to look special. The Acid Boomerang is his best single damage attack, at 2 blood, but at only RoF1 it is somewhat restricted. Acid enables him as softening something for a further beatdown, acting as a defence reduction to make others hit easier (and Ricochet lets you get it on 2 models, efficiency!). The Electric Boomerang deals only stun, but has the potentially amazing Electric trait, meaning he can Stun models and stop them using counters on a crit (again, Ricochet for the control factor is great). At RoF2 it is a solid attack to KO models, but in the most common case where Electric is a factor (reroll damage vs Bots and Cybernetic) the Blade Boomerang already has Sharp, but with blood/stun. The Gravity Boomerang is his most potentially interesting, having lower damage than the rest (1 blood) but at RoF2 and with Push you can force a lot of models out of position. With Ricochet you can potentially push 4 models a turn, moving things how you want them and dictating the flow of the game in a huge way.
Defensively
As previously mentioned, this Boomerang has defence 4 and endurance 6, both higher than SS. This means he is natively harder to take out, combined with trading Elusive for Dodge, and at movement 3 no less, you get a model that can stick around a lot longer.
Overall
Some big changes between Boomerangs, this one loses Greed, so can score of any objective, and gains Follow Me! and Tracking. Follow Me! makes him a great secondary piece in slower crews like OC, as he can help with counter efficiency and increasing movement, and Tracking means he himself is able to be sped up when necessary (although at willpower 6 he is unlikely to have much left after a full turn of action). He is harder to slot into crews than SS Boomerang, but still fits very well into a great many builds. As a boss in Suicide Squad, he is also an interesting option. While not being as singularly effective as Deadshot or Deathstroke, he is able to manipulate the effective Let's Go! that Suicide Squad have, and enable the real heavy hitters to play with it.

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