Bane
DKR Set, Part 1 and Part 2
Bane's crew are pretty numerous and are all fairly good, but tend to be very expensive and a lot of them have the Elite tag to restrict them in lists.
The Batbox has some of the most expensive models in the
faction, but they’re also really good. Kabuto is basically a League ninja plus
extra Bane flavour and so is amazing, Dreadnought Op is a wrecking ball of
great proportions, Elite Op is an assault rifle with Shooter and Light Armour
(not as good overall as Barsad, but still good), Sharpshooter is a fire and
forget zone control piece with an amazing gun and Support Op brings some really
good versatility with his grenade launcher (the regular grenade is good, medium
range grenade is better. This is even more apparent with smoke grenades). The
Bane in the set is a bit of a support piece, a bit of a wrecking ball as he has
traits which buff up his own crew but also has a ton of great traits himself on
top of his attack 6 with Reinforced Gloves and Master Fighter. I Will Break You
is huge in terms of versatility each game and gives him a great variety of
options, he has good use of his Venom through having it and Venom Enrage for
survivability, and being Desensitised he is insanely hard to take down-
especially from stun damage. Meanwhile he can run around the table (albeit a
bit slowly) and knock enemy models out fairly easily without much care- just be
careful of enemy beatsticks like Ra’s that will take him down fairly easily.
Bird’s set are less obvious utility but still useful. Clover has a lot of competition from the other pistols in the crew (particularly the Mercenary one but also Carlo Grotti the prisoner and the dual pistol thug) and Schoolboy is not worth taking compared to the Militia rocket (even in general, he isn’t good) but Cuchillo is a really worthwhile objective runner just to drop markers down. Bird himself is excellent too, letting you take Elite: Soldiers of Fortune in any crew while himself having decent enough stats and the always awesome smoke grenade.
The DKR set is a bit weirder in that it has DKR Bane who is excellent and a really good cheaper option for a Bane crew, 2 Mercenaries who are both great (the axe one being a mainstay in SoF crews IMO) and Barsad (easily one of the best assault rifles in the game) but also the Tumbler and DKR Talia al Ghul. Talia is a League model exclusively but I feel like I should mention her here as it is in a Bane themed box (the box is all able to be taken in League), and really Talia is still not up to scratch. She doesn’t do anything particularly special and as such I really don’t like the idea of her in any League crew (although she could be decent in Soldiers of Fortune, but that isn’t an option). The Tumbler is mostly just really expensive and it doesn’t do a huge amount, while stopping you from manipulating while inside it (which is a huge downside and the real reason you don’t want to take it)
Militia
My previous crew review
Deathstroke in 3rd Edition by my good friend Jason
I won't cover Deathstroke here as he's already been discussed on the blog, but I will mention that he can be a Sidekick for 0 funding and thus lead a Soldiers of Fortune crew which is a great option to have and adds to their quite large stable of Boss options.
Militia have 2 great characters in Arkham Knight and Scarecrow, but both do very different things for the crew. Arkham Knight is a really great and mobile damage dealer with some great pieces of equipment for both himself and the crew (Radio? Yes please) and in general is a great option for being a cheap damage dealer in the crew. Scarecrow on the other hand is really cheap as a Sidekick, but is a control piece through and through with his ability to really reliably shut down whole sections of the board and with his equipment not even be there. The action economy that Scarecrow can take almost complete control of is really crazy as he can make sure models without Audacity simply can’t do anything on any given turn which will have huge effects on the game in general.
The henchmen have traditionally been a little bit average for their cost, but in 3rd edition they have some really amazing standout options that go a long way to making the crew fantastic. The Brute should now be left at home as he is often too slow to have any real effect on the game for his high cost, but the Militia Lieutenant in the Batbox is fantastic as he has all the good tools you want in a henchman (not one but 2 decent weapons, the Radio trait and Follow Me for a bit of support ability) and the others without funding costs are cheap enough that they work as great list fillers if you want to keep in the Soldiers of Fortune theme instead of dip into Thugs and Prisoners (although they are also great). The carbine is useful because carbines are always decent, although the rocket launcher struggles a lot with the typical struggles RoF1 weapons have in the current rules.
Bane the Bat
Bane the Bat is the 2019 Black Friday model, and boy is he a crazy model. A prime example of how big beaters became ridiculously powerful in 3rd edition, Bane the Bat is very similar stat wise to Rebirth Bane (that is to say very good at hitting but not great at defending) and there are really not that many differences between them. For 9 rep more Bane the Bat loses Cool Under Fire and a Venom Dose but replaces it with Batcape (situational but hilarious), Light Armour (excellent to help protect him), Batman Lives (lets him take William Cobb which is a bit cute, but the special action to remove a non-Batman affiliated model from play is really good and the free move if he starts his activation out of LoS makes him terrifyingly fast) and the Bat-Signal weapon which is also great. He loses his hit bonuses when he uses it and it can only be used once, but attack 6 doing double blood and with sharp you will very reliably be killing most models which is a great option to have.
He also brings along his own objective card, which is quite
simply 3VP if all of the opponent’s Leaders, Free Agents and Sidekicks are KO
or dead. It’s not guaranteed and will require effort to make it happen, but if
it does you’ll be pretty happy. The resource on it is great too, for 1 point
the opponent loses LoS to Bane the Bat entirely in his next activation (note
here that it doesn’t have to be used in Bane’s activation either- you can spend
it early in a turn and then save Bane for later)
Decks- Generic picks and predictions
Starting with the obvious, this deck will almost definitely arrive with a few cards to trigger off of Veterans. I'm expecting a mix of effect-based (Scarecrow) and damage-based (Bane and Arkham Knight) cards to come alongside the usual suspect stuff, and I wouldn't be surprised if there are resources that allow them to pop suspects for either buffs on their own models (Venom/Titan type things) or for forcing fear tests on the opponent.
Soldiers of Fortune are a deck that I am personally quite
excited for and look forward to seeing what comes of it, but I'm also
considering what cards they like in the generic deck. As they are they have to
take a full 20 cards from the generic set, but that doesn't mean they can't
still attempt to tailor the deck to their faction a bit. Catch a Bullet is
really great because of the plethora of high-powered guns in the faction
(Arkham Knight, Sharpshooter, the 2 assault rifles), Die Hard is always worth
taking, I’m Feeling Weird is great with Scarecrow lists (especially with Arkham
Knight or the grenade launcher as well for Smoke access), Dirty Job, They Must
Know Pain and Overdrive are worth taking in the right list builds (mainly Bane
melee builds) and the “enemy deployment package” of Flanking and Stake Your Claim is something
to consider if you’re able to do it (Arkham Knight taking HSH with Radio for
example) although it won’t be as easy as crews with easy access to Hidden.
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