League of Shadows in Batman 3rd Edition

Hi all, continuing off my last BMG post being a discussion of the Batman crew adapting to 3rd edition, today I'm following up with my other main crew the League of Shadows. As a crew they operate very differently to Batman in that they have very little shooting and are primarily melee focused, while their decks are more heavily tilted towards Violence with a side of Menace and Control objectives over the Protection and Control of Batman crews or Menace and Violence of Joker.

Equipment
2nd Ed Equipment
Most of the equipment is exactly the same usefulness as before, with the big exception of Combat Braces. Now that you always get your full blocks this has gone up in value massively and on your higher defence pieces (Damian and ninja) they become a lot harder to hit.

General Thoughts
2nd Ed thoughts
League got a big boost in damage with not having to wound to deal damage (the dreaded 5+ is only on the strength die) but they are also easy to block and low willpower which are still not fantastic. Their ranged weapons are also mainly bows and thus struggle a lot from the fact that RoF1 weapons lose dice very easily and are almost completely ineffective. They are however good defensively and with their deck and certain traits in the crew play a good manipulate game as well as killing.

DKR Set
2nd Edition overview
These models are still very niche in that they are almost entirely locked into Bane, who himself is not a bad option in League but also doesn't do the great things Talia or Ra's do, and DKR Talia is still just kind of meh in everything she does. The henchmen are really good, just that they flat out can't be taken in most League lists.

Henchmen and Batbox
Pre-Batbox henchmen
Demon's Heir Batbox
The older henchmen are for the most part still pretty good, with a lot of them occupying a niche in the crew. The ninja are all still pretty hardy models and katanas are always good (Yang now with Combo is really good value) but overall there's only a couple of them that are super worth it (Yang and Ichi mainly, but also Shadow for the Smoke Bomb). The bows are almost entirely not worth it, especially compared to the new Acolytes. The agents are not really great- the Hassassins are around the same cost and mostly better. Agent 3 with Fast and a katana is ok though cause those are both valuable traits (and gives her a 12" movement for 23 rep which is dirt cheap). Only ones left mentioning now outside of the Batbox are the upper bracket of League with their 3 older high-cost models- Hayabusa, Robin and Goro. Robin I have already discussed from a Batman context and in League he becomes insane because of his blood damage and will reliably kill whatever he touches, Goro is a multi-use tank (although is prone to easy KO), damage dealer and support piece and I would recommend him often in Eternal games, while Hayabusa is another very interesting piece in how he works because of his set of traits. In effect a better statted ninja (although not Elite) he also has Acrobat, Combat Flip and Undercover which are all very helpful when just playing a League game (he as a 13” movement and Undercover so can be very threatening) plus his Ancient Bow giving him the option of a ranged attack without Aim like other bows.

The Batbox stuff for League is among the most valuable in my opinion, because it puts out a ton of work and are all around good. The Hassassins are all cheap henchmen with good damage, being able to score almost all the League cards which is great, and they have a few other sneaky tricks (Hassassin 1's poison, Scouting on Hassassin 4). Talia is already a great leader, but now has Order added on to her kit making her the premier manipulate-based leader for League because she plays around with board control a lot. She can put out good damage herself but she's not on the same level as the others, instead being a lynchpin of the crew through her aforementioned manipulate tricks (Inspire, Order and Scheming) and Mind Control Substance for a bit extra way to stop your henchmen from being KO easier (and from staying KO). Talia's card is one of the more difficult to score and really relies heavily on placement and killing the enemy, but the resource on it is a great way to turn on a lot of your other objectives while also countering your opponent. Cheshire is a really good fast objective runner that can get where you need her, plus she has good damage and tricky uses of poison to shut down opponents. She is tough to take down between Acrobat and Defensive, and her objective card can be built towards pretty well and she plays very nicely with a ton of cards. The Heretic on the other hand is a pure bruiser and mainly exists just to hit things and make sure they die while he soaks damage and takes heat off the rest of your crew. His objective gives him a Bodyguard effect for Talia as a resource (1 resource point instead of an effort) and the scoring on it is a bit similar to Ubu needing a model to take 2 models to attack one of yours and that model survive. In general though the Heretic just moves around and kills models but he can also choose to deal double blood or double stun, push things around and he's tough to remove with Desensitised, Large and Light Armour

3rd Edition options
Much like I did with Gordon, I will gloss over the new Ra's model because it is in effect the same model as before on a different base size (40mm or 60mm) and I already discussed the old Ra's previously. Lazarus Pit Owner is excellent though as the Pit is a card you will always be adding to your deck, and having it as a way to all but guarantee Ra's will be kept safe that turn is huge given his impact. In general Ra's is good but not mandatory given League have a pretty good stable of leaders.
Ubu is an interesting model and a great character, but not as finely tuned as a lot of his other expensive henchmen brothers in League. He is pretty tanky which is great for him as a Bodyguard, although Defence 3 isn't fantastic for his cost and he can still go down to a big hit or two quite easily. He is able to Effort regardless of how much blood damage he sustains which is great (and means your leaders are going for even longer) and also helps his sword do tons of damage as it should. He has no bonuses to hit with it, but with Reach doing 2 blood his attack 4 is pretty good and will mean he can get out damage, as well as his strength of 3+ with rerolls from Sharp, and Bleed:1 for 3 damage crits. His one most unique thing is Inspire Fear to play a bit of a shutdown role and means with Audacity he can really mess up an enemy crew through damaging one thing and scaring another.

The Acolytes are a set of new henchmen that are separate from the Ninjas and Hassassins, based more off of the Arrow interpretation of the League. They sort of exist as a middle point between the Hassassins and Ninja in almost every respect (statted like Ninja, traits like Hassassins) and have some very good things they bring to the table. Acolyte 1 is basically a better Hassassin and that’s all that needs to be said about him, Acolyte 2 is really great at throwing out a bunch of lower damage attacks with his knives (useful for objectives). Acolyte 3 is a really good way of getting around the traditional huge weakness of bows with Falconry (although he needs Audacity to do it) and getting the bonus of extra dice on top of it so he will roll 2 dice+strength at the cost of a suspect marker. Acolyte 4 is ok but definitely the weakest of the bunch because of how bows suffer from cover and moving (he has Good Aim but moving before shooting is useless with RoF1 weapons). The Enervating Gas arrow is a good way to shut down groups of enemies and restricting their Effort Limit, but with how many other amazing options exist in League I would give it a miss. 

Lady Shiva is the last of the new things, and I'm honestly not a huge fan. Her unique objective isn't great as she is pretty much the only model that can ever benefit from it unless you dip into Free Agents (or The Heretic, that's about the best combo with it) and she herself is the only model that deals purely stun damage in the entire crew. She's good at it provided you're attacking models higher than 80 rep (anything below and Arrogant kicks in which is not good) with an all but guaranteed +2 to hit and Combo, but at the same time anything else in her points bracket will pretty reliably simply one-round what they touch and not just KO them (and she can't kill them either without her objective cause of Moral Compass). Her biggest benefit is being almost always defence 5 Martial Artist, and decent movement to go with it, but she doesn't have any specific in-built synergies with the crew so I would personally leave her at home.

Building Your Deck

Even though League have 2 faction plots that revolve around Menace objectives, I think they’re largely a trap as Menace won’t be seen as much over Violence and Control (for me at least Control is the better option when adding in the generic cards) and as such you should pick plots accordingly. A bunch of the one-off League cards are great both for scoring (Blood for Blood, The Fire Rises) or resources (Lazarus Pit and again The Fire Rises), while otherwise the cards that come in 3s are useful to take. Eradicate the Order and Multiple Threats are a bit too intensive in what they do to be considered strong cards IMO and rely too much on not interacting with your opponent (which runs counter to a lot of your deck) but From the Shadows and Under Their Noses are both great in League and Do Not Deviate From the Plan is both a solid objective in itself and has a great resource to help score any other suspect-based objective. In terms of generic cards there are a few good options. Flanking is always good given your access to Hidden and Undercover, while Dirty Job and They Must Know Pain play into the Violence-heavy playstyle of League and can help go to plots more. With what I’ve already mentioned as being my favourite cards it’s up to 19, and for the remainder I tend to choose Die Hard because it’s fairly easy to score and League have models that you can take it on and then put them into really awkward positions to keep them safe while still being relevant to the game.