Last time out I had a look at the gear and skills that my 200 rep Batman crew will be taking with them for our tutorial game in a couple of weeks. Now I want to have a brief look at what I will be up against.
Joker
The big thing that J-man has in his back pocket are the traits Trickster and Kaos Agent. The first allows him to change the position of his tokens when he activates. Wow – this is a big deal and basically means he doesn't have to do any forward thinking at the start of each turn. The latter trait allows him to remove an opponent's token from the bag at the beginning of the game (meaning the game will end a turn sooner) but worse (better?) than that is he confers the Trickster trait onto all his Henchmen! Now we have an entire crew (possibly) who can react to things as they activate, rather than planning their actions at the beginning of each turn. That is a huge deal and considered borderline 'broken' by many as the advantage it gives is immense.
Inspire gives Henchmen close by an extra Action counter to use as they see fit. This will mean that Joker's bodyguards will be able to do more, making things a little tricky. Talking of which, Luck allows the Joker to re-roll a single dice roll that affects him directly – including an attack against him. This could potentially pull him out of the fire if timed correctly.
Regarding weapons, he has a Poisoned Knife that will inflict a single blood damage – it has a nasty critical hit effect though, poisoning the target for more damage or removing their action counters. He also has Explosive Teeth – remote controlled, which when combined with his Total Vision will mean he can shoot around corners.
The ace up his sleeve has to be his One Shot Gun. Given that Joker's Total Vision allows him to see almost anywhere on the board, this weapon could be deadly. An automatic his inflicting 3 blood damage is bad enough, but a crit will remove the target as a casualty – the end. That is nasty!
Henchmen
Most of the henchmen that Bull is likely to include in his list have the Let's Go trait. This gives Bull the chance to be able to immediately activate another henchman after one has finished his go. This chain activation could be utilised well at key moments in the game.
Each individual henchman has a couple of additional traits that will prove a nightmare for Bull to remember, haha. They're all pretty functional without being outstanding, adding extra individual flavour. I'm not going to try and remember them myself.
The Joker's henchmen do have a decent collection of weapons though… and all of them do blood damage. Axes are getting re-rolls and inflicting 2 blood; the Shotgun inflicts 2 blood and a stun. I need to stay clear of these if I'm going to survive the game.
Conclusions
The henchmen, on paper at least, are easy prey. I'll be hitting them on 2 or 3+ and they'll be hitting Batman on a 5+. They only have 4 Endurance on average so not a lot of staying power. If I can get the drop on them, I could incapacitate them before they can react. Things are never that easy though and the various traits will come into play to get them working as a team or gumming up the works in some form or other.
As I have mentioned elsewhere, my 200 rep crew can't inflict any blood damage so the Joker's crew will always be a recovery roll or two away from full strength. I won't be able to claim any VPs for casualties, only KO's, so I already feel on the back foot. In contrast, Bull's Joker crew have plenty of ways to inflict blood damage on the dynamic duo and potentially remove them from the game. I'm kinda realising why I prefer to play as the bad guys!
