Deathstroke and 3rd Edition

Greetings! My first ever BMG article on my good gaming buds blog! I'm a wargamer of many, many years ( Warhammer 1st edition back in the early 80's!!!) Couple of years ago I decided to give BMG a go having been a lifelong devotee of the Batman universe! I grew up watching Adam West camping it up as the bat (I still think Burgess Meredith is the quintessential Penguin!) as an 19 year old I remember going with mates to the old cinema complex on George St to see Tim Burton's take.
Here I am at my 3rd birthday with some of my cousins and one of them, Adam has my Boy Wonder doll! Im the one with Jason on his Tshirt! :)

 Now why the Stroke? Deathstroke is in my top 5 Batman characters. I played him extensively in 2nd edition, usually in my Mr. Freeze crew and always found him a great piece. Towards the end of 2nd edition the consensus was that he had become too expensive when compared with some of the newer models. I''m looking at you Merciless! Most of us that played 2nd edition remember the killing power of the Stroke.
Now in 3rd edition i think the reset has been great for him. yes, he is still pricey but my goodness he gets some work done. I have used him in my Freeze crew in 3rd ed and everything that makes the opponent wary of him is still there!


Lets look at his card and what it all means now in 3rd edition (Disclaimer: Its all very new and if i make a mistake let me know and ill revise!)

Now 145 is still a whopper cost but lets move on. Funding zero is good especial when we talk about the crews he can go in and lead, more of that later.
Will power 7 is solid and 8 endurance great. Attack and Defence 5 is awesome in this edition. In conjunction with his Bo and playing of cards you can get 6 attacks plus the strength die re rolling misses. then every two hits adds an extra one! I have had him hit someone for 10 stun, then the blocks are quite hard with attack 5. The issue with stun is of course they can recover. The sword is scary with double blood but not as reliable as the Bo.
Acrobat is still one the strongest abilities in the game and the dodge combined with his stealth makes him hard to hit. Undercover and moving 11 " means he can get to where you want him fast turn 1 even.
Counter attack is totally cooked now! He takes one stun to activate it through an effort then every block he makes for the rest of the turn he can counterattack which means an AUTO hit back with your choice of weapon. Think about this you come in and he rolls 5 block dice, lets say conservatively he blocks two, that's 4 blood! Now if the opponent chooses to come in an attack with someone else they too will cop counterattack because you always roll block dice now. Again blocking the counter attack will be hard with attack stat of 5 if you can block it but at the moment I don't think its clear.
Hidden sniper is great as well but i forget to use it most times. Its a special action so he can do it and still use his normal attacks after moving if he has audacity (and i cant see why you wouldn't give him an audacity counter every turn.) With the strength die its a possible 4 blood followed by his attacks . Situational but could really ruin someones day!
Martial artist is still good to make sure when he is the thick of it he isn't getting penalised.
Soul Armour is much better now, just use his special which unless you sniper you can every turn and heal two damage of any type.Useful if you just used effort, especially if blocking and then counterattacking.
So that is his card, worth every point i think but now lets look at his place in crews.
In any bad guy he is a great add especially given he costs no funding. He is more than capable of controlling a wing of the board and doing whatever you need him to to fulfil objectives.
Now the exciting part for a big fan of the Stroke. You could take him as a leader in Militia last edtion but now with the rolling of Bane and Militia together in Soldier of Fortune you can give him a zero cost upgrade to make him a sidekick in SoF and thus he can be the boss! With his pick of Bane's boys and  militia you can get some pretty fun crews to play! Deathstroke with sniper cover from Barsad with night vision and Sharpshooter, plus any other tricks like smoke etc he becomes a powerful alternative to leading your crew with Bane. I hope they release some Mirakuru soldiers at a later date!
Now I'm off to jankify some lists and plan for my next Deathstroke onslaught!

Jason