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C3G Strategy - August 2019

Posted August 12th, 2019 at 10:16 PM by HS Codex

C3G Strategy Guide
Torquemada
By: Lazy Orang


This is a figure I’ve wanted to review ever since I tested him ... I’ve just been waiting for him to be released! Without further ado, let’s take a look at 2000AD’s “Fascist of the Future.”

Analyzed Statistics

Left Box Breakdown
Species – Human (minor synergies; the most common species in C3G, making it somewhat clunky for Star-Lord builds)
Uniqueness – Unique Hero
Class – Dictator (some synergy with Chun-Li, but mostly irrelevant)
Personality – Fanatical (no effect)
Size/Height – Medium 5 (manoeuverable, can use ladders, and can be affected by a number of beneficial powers such as Carry, but also vulnerable to a number of enemy powers, like Graviton’s throws)

Torquemada is defined by the synergies he provides rather than receives. Left-hand stats? Mostly irrelevant.

Statistics Breakdown
Life – 4 (Average)
Move – 5 (Average)
Range – 1 (Melee)
Attack – 4 (Average)
Defence – 4 (Average)
Points – 205 (Mid-level hero)

For a character of this power level, Torquemada’s stats are quite poor—none above average. His special powers will need to be pretty damn good to justify his price and make up for his stats.

Powers Breakdown

Pure Vigilance!
All Common Human figures you control have a Fanatical personality instead of what is listed on their cards. When Torquemada or a Fanatical Human figure within three clear sight spaces of Torquemada attacks an adjacent non-human figure with a normal attack, add one automatic skull to whatever is rolled.

Possibly Torquemada’s most useful power, boosting his own attack and allowing for a potentially devastating attack aura—giving multiple squaddies an auto skull per turn is pretty scary. It’s not without its flaws, though: while non-human is an extremely wide category to counter, it does mean that humans, the game’s most common species, can completely blunt this power. Plus, while the ability to make all common humans you control fanatical gives you a wide variety of disposable fodder to choose from, unique fanatical human heroes are all but nonexistent in the game at present, with Solomon Kane and Reverend Stryker being the only examples (and Stryker is essentially useless in combat). Hopefully this will change, but, at present, it is an unfortunate tactical limitation. In the right matchup, though, this power can easily be the difference between victory and defeat.

Tactical Advantage – Extremely High.

Four Faces of Torquemada
Start the game with three gray Face markers. After Torquemada has been destroyed, whenever a small or medium figure is destroyed that is not an Android, Undead or Construct, you may place one Face Marker on this card. If you do, replace the destroyed figure with Torquemada, remove all Wound Markers from this card and then place 1 Wound Marker on this card for each Face Marker on this card. If there is a Face Marker on this card, Torquemada has the species of Undead instead of Human.

While the previous power makes him offensively useful, this power helps to make up for his middling defensive stats. I’ve always loved villains who can cheat death in Heroscape, and this is a brilliant example. There’s a lot to talk about when it comes to this power, and we’ll get to that, but for now it’s enough to say that this power is both useful and insanely cool.

Tactical Advantage – High.

My Terminators Are Watching!
After taking a turn with Torquemada, if he inflicted one or more wounds on a non-human with his normal attack this turn, you may either move and attack with one other Fanatical Human you control or move any three other Fanatical Human figures you control.

Surprisingly, this is probably Torquemada’s least useful power: it’s far from useless, though. Free movement or a free figure activation when he wounds a non-human is nice, but not really something to build your strategy around ... especially due to the lack of fanatical human heroes in the game, meaning the full activation is likely to be with a single squaddie (still beneficial and worthwhile, just not as impressive or exciting). Again, this is likely to get better with more fanatical human heroes in the game.

Tactical Advantage – Moderate.


In Depth Analysis

For the purposes of this strategy article, I will be using a slight variation on Agatagary’s chess-based unit evaluation system; for those unfamiliar, it can be found in a previous article.

Torquemada is probably best defined as a rook: he’s too dependent on leading his men while in the thick of things to be a king and he’s not strong or valuable enough to be a queen, but he’s too vital to the formation of your army be a knight or anything lower ... he’s a little like his fellow fascist Red Skull (C3G) that way.

BYOB (Bring Your Own Bigotry)
One of the most important aspects of effectively playing Torquemada is in army-building, and you have a lot of choices. I mean, you don’t with heroes ... you’ve basically got Solomon Kane (who works very well with Torq thanks to the way Righteous Retribution and Master Swordplay pair with Pure Vigilance!) and, if you want, Meggan (a figure whose main gimmick is having all the synergies: she can mimic the left-hand stats of any other hero). The real variety comes with the different commons you can pair him with, so let’s have a look at some of the best looking combos.
  1. S.W.A.T.: Full disclosure: I’ve never actually used any of the S.W.A.T. units, with or without Torquemada, so I don’t really know what I’m talking about. However, this does at least look interesting: Torquemada doesn’t impact the Code: Blue Officers or Lieutenant Stone, and trying to put together a proper S.W.A.T. force with Torquemada seems too finnicky to be effective, but just taking Torq with a handful of common S.W.A.T. figures to activate with My Terminators Are Watching! actually sounds quite effective since, for common humans, they are pretty elite. They aren’t squads, so that hurts, but they are above the power curve of most figures you could activate with My Terminators Are Watching!, and that’s actually a good way of mobilising them, since you’d get to move three at once. The Assaulter makes a good roadblock with 5 defence and counterstrike, the Rifleman’s multi-attacks can be boosted by Torquemada if it enters melee, and the Explosives Expert can provide support to make those attacks stronger.
  2. Science Police: These feel like more of a natural combination with Torquemada than they probably are. After all, the Science Police are at their best when bringing the hammer down on non-humans as well: more open fire against non-humans while Torq can boost their attack. Perfect combo! However, in reality, this is likely to not be that easy: Science Police like to shoot early and bring up more numbers constantly, and usually attack from range, where Torquemada can’t boost them. Most of their firepower won’t be affected. Moreover, if you do happen to meet even one human in the opposing army, you’re really going to struggle at this stage, since your force is so specialised. However, you could probably charge in a vanguard with a fair bit of ease and let him boost their attacks, while just accepting that not all of your volley will be boosted: this could actually work quite well. With 2 defence, that vanguard will die pretty quickly, but that’s what the reinforcements are for!
  3. S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents: Fairly straightforward ... these guys are more expensive and have better stats than most human commons, can work decently without synergy, plus their Tactical Cover Fire can allow you to bring up more. Having to charge into melee to get the auto skull hurts, but they are more durable than a lot of other options, so these could work quite well.
  4. Crime Alley Crooks: Cheap, melee, actually decent stats for their price and bonding with a thief hero; these are a surprisingly good option and I have nothing to say against them—Torquemada can do a damn good job of increasing their offensive output against non-humans.
  5. Hand Ninja: We’re getting into some good ones now! These are quite similar to the Crime Alley Crooks, except they’re faster, have Phantom Walk, have the tactical flexibility of 3 range, have generally better bonding options (ninjas and assassins tend to do better than thieves, on average), and are 20 points more per squad. If you decide to throw Shredder in on top of Torquemada, then you can really cause a bloodbath.
  6. Civilians: Generally one of the best regarded pairings, and the one most used in testing (though, admittedly, I didn’t), Civilians already work well as a screen (think Deathreavers but swarmier, with more synergy and the potential to hit harder at the cost of being slower and their defence being paper), but Torquemada can actually give their normally puny attacks a little bit of extra fire with the auto skull from Pure Vigilance! If you can combine that with other attack boosts (their inherent Strength in Numbers, J. Jonah Jameson’s vs. a single hero and Reverend Stryker’s against any mutant), and suddenly this swarm of untrained bystanders is quite dangerous.
  7. HYDRA Agents: Possibly my favourite combo, for thematic reasons as much as any. There are gameplay reasons it works as well, though. The HYDRA Agents are already a decent squad, mostly because of their bonding heroes, and one bonding hero in particular: Red Skull (C3G), who is bloody amazing due to decent stats, solid ranged special, access to the Cosmic Cube and ability to activate other heroes if you inflict a wound with his normal attack. Normally, the HYDRA Agents just exist to act as a distraction: their tiny attacks of two are mostly covering fire, only occasionally scoring a wound. This already makes them reasonably valuable, but with Torq in tow, we can do better: by charging into melee with non-humans, they can get that nice auto skull, suddenly giving them some teeth and making them more of a legitimate threat, at least vs. low-to-mid level heroes. Not only that, but if you bond with Red Skull and he inflicts a wound in melee, you can then activate Torquemada if you wish, allowing the dictator, who needs to stand on the front lines anyway, to actually get stuck in with his blade without compromising your offensive with the rest of your army. If Torquemada then inflicts a wound on a non-human, you can use My Terminators Are Watching! to either move three fanatical humans or to take a turn with one, allowing for a remarkably intimidating bonding chain: HYDRA Agents to Red Skull to Torquemada to My Terminators Are Watching! activation. This, however, is not as scary as it initially sounds; it’s rather finnicky in that you need to keep inflicting damage, first with Red Skull and then with Torq; it’s also very likely that, by this stage, any fanatical heroes you may have will be trailing behind your front line, unable to engage in combat when Torquemada commands. Still, it will allow you to at least move them closer to the action, or to get a bonus activation with one of your HYDRA Agents on the frontline.

Four-Faced Fascist
One of Torquemada’s most important powers, Four Faces of Torquemada, takes some thought to use effectively. He’s not Solomon Grundy: he’s not a berserker you can send out in front of your main army and just wait to respawn. Torquemada needs to be used in conjunction with the rest of your force to be effective—leading from the front line—and he relies on another’s death rather than random chance to resurrect. Be careful, lest you give your opponent the opportunity to save him for last, allowing them to kill him once and be done with it, ignoring his multiple respawns. It’s best to keep him front and centre, in your opponent’s face, throwing him a turn from time to time, making him impossible to ignore. One build-specific strategy would be to take Penguin (II) alongside the HYDRA build mentioned above (or, alternatively, a Street Thug one). When Red Skull (or whoever) is protected by Penguin’s Political Investment, Torquemada can resurrect, and the only other figures you have on the front line are expendable squaddies, your opponent lacks any juicy targets to attack; this way, you can even encourage them to prioritise Torquemada, because at least killing him has some notable immediate effect for them. In any case, you want to make sure that all four of Torquemada’s lives are used up. It’s probably a good idea to take him with some Skrull Infiltrators. Since they can replace him when he dies, they can act as roadblocks and allow him to come back from the dead if they’re killed; also it means that, even if he’s left for last, you can replace him with them each time he’s killed to make it impossible for your opponent to ignore any of his respawns. Is it fittingly ironic that an alien hating fascist needs these green shapeshifters to prop him up? Yes: yes, it is.

One last thing to note is when and where to respawn. You don’t always want to respawn the first chance you get if the figure killed would put Torquemada in a bad position; sometimes it’s best to wait, but waiting too long for the ideal position can be as bad as placing him somewhere unfavourable, or worse—judge carefully. Sometimes, it may even be worth executing one of your own expendable squaddies to bring him back faster or in a better position—consider this carefully before doing so, but keep the option on the table. Their lives are worth naught next to victory.

The Limits of Hatred
Now, here’s one last thing I’d suggest about Torquemada: don’t rely on him too much. Make it so that your army as a whole can still function and do damage without being overly reliant on him, because, in the end, he is a counterdraft. He’s a counterdraft against non-humans, one of the largest groups you can counter, but still, that’s what he is, and humans are the most numerous single species in the game. While your odds of facing an army that includes at least some non-humans are high, and there’s a decent shot that you’ll face an army with no humans at all, the chance of your fighting an enemy with some humans in their team is not insignificant. Your army needs to be prepared to fight these humans effectively ... that way, you can still make use of Torquemada to target the non-humans in their force, while not being hamstrung the moment you come up against a homo sapien.

Closing Thoughts

In conclusion, have fun using Torquemada to purge your opponent’s armies, but don’t forget: love is stronger than hate! Until next time, may the dice gods bless you with victory!
Total Comments 2

Comments

Old
Lord Pyre's Avatar
Awesome! I really love this design but haven't had a chance to play it yet. Very useful analysis.
Posted August 13th, 2019 at 10:48 AM by Lord Pyre Lord Pyre is online now
Old
Tornado's Avatar
Great article.
For Species, he does become an Undead after his first death, so there is a little Undead synergy available, not much though.
Do the Skrull Infiltrators work if Torq is your last figure?
I think their power says immediately so probably so.
Posted August 13th, 2019 at 12:21 PM by Tornado Tornado is online now
 
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