Welcome back everyone to my first BMG 3rd edition update, discussing the Batman crew formerly known as the Brave and the Bold. This crew and its derivatives are easily my favourite to play (only League come close) and I've been putting in the reps to learn the game with them. Below are a few of my thoughts on how the older models square up in the new rules, and then how the newer additions factor in.
The biggest thing to factor in is the new action limit and how models will always get their full value of movement, attacks and blocks. This is a huge gain for all the "hero" characters as they are a lot more efficient now that they get the full benefits of all their higher stats every turn. The increased movement is also great for the positioning needed to score a lot of generic and Batman specific cards so you can achieve points where needed.
Equipment
Most of the value of their equipment has somewhat stayed the same, but a few items have changed drastically in value. Whistles are no longer the must take they were before as their effect is majorly cut down vs the higher defence/willpower characters they would usually target before, but they're still ok to take. Magazines are also less valuable because the games are shorter and most ammo gets you through half or more of the game anyway. Patrol Training for Undercover is excellent, but the big star is the Radio for always counting as in range for Inspire. It's great to move up the sides and get Secure the Perimeter or Flanking without needing any support.
Batman and Bat-Family
Part 1 and
Part 2 of my 2nd edition overviews
Batman as a series of models is pretty strong as a piece in the crew now, as 3rd edition has increased the combat prowess of high attack/defence characters and allows them to do a lot of work. My favourite options are Knightmare, Knightfall, Modern Age and Flashpoint personally because they are all pretty good now, but Batman is mostly just a choice of which flavour you want to adapt to your playstyle and deck.
Bat-Family as a team are now in a great spot with how Audacity and Inspire work for teams, as the whole crew are quick, tanky and easily able to get where they need to be to score. Batman is mandatory for Inspire, but that isn't a huge downside because Batman is a good model anyway and you want to be taking him. Damian is also pretty great because he allows you to take League cards (and eventually Owls cards) and is in general a cheap, quick and hard-hitting option.
The Robins and Teen Titans
Robins
Part 1, Part 2 and
Part 3, Teen Titans
Like the Batman models, Robin has almost across the board kept being good in 3rd edition and they all benefit in their own ways from the changes. Nightwing and Red Hood are really good beaters that are insanely fast which are both super valuable things, and the Robins all do slightly different things. Damian is a glass cannon attack piece but with his movement and Detective plus being a henchman can play the manipulate game and plot cards very well, Jason with Handyman is another very good objective runner and Dick is either a super agile control model (Boy Wonder) or a synergistic piece that plays around with the rest of your crew and helps you out with placement and maintaining your closeness.
The Teen Titans team are a bit odd in that their team rules combined with Effort makes them potentially quite rough when fighting (because -4 dice unless you take stun damage isn't nice even though it costs them stun damage too) although they are very quick and through Dick Grayson get Inspire to play a great manipulating game. Starfire has become a pretty good piece and Batgirl, Hawk and Dove are still valuable, with Donna Troy being the beatstick she always was while also being all but immune to the new system of shooting at the same time. Beast Boy isn't fantastic and Raven could do with her Magic before seeing a lot of play but both are still ok. Titans also have the benefit of still being a 5-6 model list while taking entirely 50 rep+ models, and like Batfam can get access to League cards through Damian which is really good to do because some of the League cards benefit Titans a lot (Lazarus Pit especially)
Henchmen
Dark Knight Rises box,
Part 1 and
Part 2
Henchmen mostly occupy the same role in a Batman crew as they did before. The expensive elite ones are lynchpins of the crew that do their own work (Lerida, Harry and Diggle are all still very good) and the cheaper ones mainly exist to sit around scoring and Arresting. The DKR spray cop is of a bit less value than he was with the action change and new fat cop, but is still the absolute cheapest model you can get into the crew which is a value of its own.
Return to Gotham
Now that the older stuff is out of the way, it's time to discuss the new 3rd edition models because they are really quite good.
I'll quickly skip past the Batman in the box because he is really just a slightly cheaper version of Rebirth Batman but on a 40mm base. He's good, that's all I need to say.
Commissioner Gordon is very similar to
his old 2nd edition card (who is still great in terms of traits) just replacing Hidden Sniper with Bat-Signal. The old Air Support/Hidden Sniper combo didn't work anyway now that you only get one special action, but Bat-Signal gives you a once per game teleport of Batman from anywhere on the table into base contact with Gordon at the penalty of lighting up Gordon. This is obviously useless if you don't take Batman but when you do can be potentially game changing as you slingshot him right into a position where he can threaten a huge part of the table and score you cards. Otherwise the combo of Detective+Veteran are his big things (or at least will be if more cards come out that he can't already score with Detective and Cop) and he is a worthwhile piece on both 40mm and 60mm for various reasons although I prefer the modelling of the 60mm so for that reason alone that is what I will use.
The henchmen in this box are all really nice value for a variety of reasons. The new version of the Gotham Policeman in the box is great as a 16 rep filler with Defensive to keep alive and run objectives, the Policewoman with taser is another decent filler but not really a must have and Merkel with his Riot Gun is a good potential way to get out extra KOs if needed but also just a cheapish runner with Arrest. The 2 big stars though are the Detective and Harvey Bullock, and what they do for the crew is absolutely ridiculous in terms of the value they will give you in scoring. Hidden on both as well as Detective means you can start
hitting the good VP cards right from the start (Flanking and Secure the
Perimeter especially) and plots that need Detectives to work are also trivial.
Order on Harvey with that means you can potentially put out 3 markers from the
2 of them without needing Audacity or Inspire, but with either of them (which
is going to be a Radio on Bullock in most cases but probably on both) you can turn
that into 5 around them depending on placement. The potential to score off
doing that every single turn is very high risk/high reward and forces the
opponent to react which in itself keeps the rest of your crew doing a fairly
easy game plan with less threat.
Building a Deck
Batman
Batman decks tend to be tailored slightly to the Batman you're using (Knightmare, Knightfall or Flashpoint will trend slightly more towards violence objectives than the rest). The golden cards in Batman decks though will be Snitch, Secure the Perimeter and Get Them Off the Streets plus Flanking from the generic deck. That combo is 12 cards of your deck with the rest being flavoured to your list a bit more, but that set is a really solid manipulate game that I would probably also always add into Titans and Batfam as well. I aim for at least about 6-7 cards each in Protection and Control as well to go towards Plot cards (and just cause those ones are well-suited to my style of play) for the “core” of my deck. As for Plots I tend to take Detective Work to start (with Detective and Bullock it’s not difficult to get it turn 1) and then cycle through the other 3 which are some combo of VIP, Point the Finger, Raid (if I have a decent amount of Violence objectives) and The Sneak (if I have more Menace objectives).
Bat-Family
Because you can't take 4 Detectives here you need to be a bit more careful, but still much of the same applies as in Batman crews in terms of what are good for your style of play. You do get League cards here though if you take Damian so you can tailor even more heavily to what you want to do. I would recommend using his 6 on the Lazarus Pit (for the damage reduction resource, not to score), The Fire Rises (because revealing enemy markers within 6" of your boss is made all the easier when your boss is a Detective with Batclaw) and Do Not Deviate From The Plan (with all the easy movement you can just dump one in an awkward spot and they can't really deny you, or it has
disgusting synergy with Snitch)
Teen Titans
Very similar to how I build lists for Bat-Family but taking out almost everything that requires Detectives (mainly plots) and depending on the list Violence objectives (except the Pit because you don't care about scoring it anyway), instead adding in more marker based stuff. Going heavy on Protection and Control objectives is a good bet with Titans because they can go very well at this and I think it is their best style of play same as a manipulate heavy Batman crew.
