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C3G Strategy Guide: Blue Lantern (Bro’Dee Walker)

Posted February 2nd, 2020 at 04:52 PM by HS Codex

C3G Strategy Guide
Blue Lantern (Bro’Dee Walker)
Author: Lazy Orang


As we all know, life can get depressing at times, especially in this weather. You know what we could use? A little hope. So, let’s take a look at the first wielder of the Blue Light of Hope—Saint Walker!

Analyzed Statistics

Left Box Breakdown
Species – Astonian (a unique species helps him pair with the Guardians of the Galaxy synergy pieces: Star-Lord, Mantis, Rocket Raccoon (vII) and Baby Groot)
Uniqueness – Unique Hero
Class – Saint (a unique class does the same as the unique species, save for Mantis)
Personality – Hopeful (a currently unique personality to help with Mantis ... this guy really wants to run with the Guardians, doesn’t he?)
Size/Height – Medium 5 (manoeuverable, can use ladders, and can be affected by some beneficial powers—e.g. Carry—but also vulnerable to some enemy powers, like Graviton’s throws)

Really the only notable thing about his left-hand stats is how painfully easy he is to fit into a Guardians of the Galaxy build—otherwise he’s really getting nothing here.

Statistics Breakdown
Life – 4 (Average)
Move – 3 (Glacial)
Range – 3 (Short)
Attack – 3 (Poor)
Defence – 3 (Pitiful)
Points – 280 (Moderately expensive)

Those stats are frankly pathetic for this price tag. This guy’s powers had better be something really special, because that’s just silly otherwise.

Powers Breakdown

Blue Power Battery 4
Start the game with 4 blue Battery Markers on this card. Add 1 to this Blue Lantern’s Move and Defense numbers for each blue Battery Marker on this card. If one or more Green Lantern figures are within 4 spaces of this Blue Lantern, you may also add the same number to this Blue Lantern’s Range and Attack numbers.

Okay, so I was being just a tad disingenuous when I was disparaging this guy’s stats. He’s a Lantern—of course he’s got a power like this. Notably, he is a Blue Lantern, and that means that he’ll need a Green Lantern around for his offensive output to be in any way reasonable ... and if that’s the case you likely won’t need him to be making big attacks that your Green Lantern can do instead. This does move Saint Walker more into the realms of support than independent offence. It is worth noting, though, that he’s one of the only Lanterns to have a base range of more than one—with the range boost from this power, Saint Walker will be outranging all other existing Lanterns, and an attack of seven at a range of seven is nothing to sniff at—plus he makes for a solid backup large attack if the Green Lantern boosting him has had his battery depleted.

Tactical Advantage – High.

Blue Light of Hope
After moving and before attacking, you may remove one blue Battery Marker from this card to remove up to 1 Wound Marker from the Army Cards of this Blue Lantern and of all figures adjacent to this Blue Lantern.

Did I say “support”? Well, it seems I was right. This is an awesome healing ability, for reasons I will explain later.

Tactical Advantage – High.

Instill Hope
Before a friendly figure within 3 clear sight spaces of this Blue Lantern attacks, you may remove one blue Battery Marker from this card. If you do, the attacking figure adds 1 to its Attack number for each figure it is engaged with until you reveal an Order Marker.

Okay, this might require some intelligent timing and set-up, but it’s potentially horrifying.

Tactical Advantage – High.

Super Strength

We all know this: doesn’t do much.

Tactical Advantage – Marginal.

Flying

We all know this, too: it’s awesome.

Tactical Advantage – High.

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.

Saint Walker is best described as a rook—he’s not quite the self-contained powerhouse necessary to be a queen, but he’s certainly going to have a large impact on the battle if used correctly, due to having a scary statline (as long as you have a Green Lantern on hand) and some exceptional support capability. You’ll have to use him exceedingly carefully, though.

Emotional Support
Saint Walker is a rare Lantern: although he’s a strong fighter in his own right, his primary purpose is support, and, unlike most other Lanterns acting in a support capacity, he isn’t tied to a specific faction ... though the fact that he needs a nearby Green Lantern to boost his own offense does put him into a factional role, to a degree. However, there are two notable factors here:
  • Effects do not scale depending on the number of nearby Green Lanterns—only one is required to give Saint Walker his full bonus, so there is no reason necessarily to take more than one with him, except as redundancy in case the first GL is killed. There’s no reason not to, mind, and given there’s reason to take multiple GLs together anyway (especially if you have Kilowog), throwing Saint Walker into a full Green Lantern build as a support hero is perfectly viable, but is far from necessary in order to use him effectively.
  • Any hero can benefit from Saint Walker’s support abilities; technically, he provides no Green Lantern–specific bonuses to GLs: they boost him, not he them. It’s only when attacking that GL support becomes necessary.

As such, I’d say there are roughly three different sorts of builds you can play Saint Walker in, with different strengths and weaknesses to each one:
  • A full on Green Lantern build: arguably the most solid build, since the Green Lanterns are a solid faction anyway and Saint Walker’s almost invariably going to be able to be powered up, but lack of reliable multi-attacks will limit Instill Hope’s potential.
  • A hero-based hodgepodge army without Green Lanterns (something like an Avengers– or Guardians of the Galaxy–style build would be perfect): allows you to tailor your unit choices to the types of characters who’ll benefit most from Saint Walker’s support powers, but will leave you with a 280 point hero almost incapable of achieving anything offensively himself.
  • A hero-based hodgepodge army alongside a Green Lantern: provides the benefits of both previous builds and the negatives of neither, but bear in mind that all existing Green Lanterns are highly expensive—the cheapest (Kyle Raynor) running you 300 points—so Saint Walker and a Lantern in a hodgepodge build is going to cost you at least 680 points right now (probably more like 700, since Kyle isn’t the best Lantern unless you can afford Green Constructs to take him with, leaving Guy Gardner as a more attractive budget option at 320). If you’re playing at 1,000, you’ll likely have to forgo a generalist leader for your army (such as Captain America or Star-Lord) to pull this off effectively, though at 1,200+, it becomes much more viable to do this and manage to squeeze a leader for your army in. If cheaper Green Lanterns arrive, then doing this without breaking the bank suddenly becomes an option, but bear in mind that cheaper Lanterns are also likely to be more easily assassinated, and would still need to be at the front in order to bolster Saint Walker.

A Light in the Darkness
The simplest of Saint Walker’s two marker burn powers is the first, Blue Light of Hope. This is a very useful power, allowing you to keep your army refreshed and in the fight for longer, which can often help turn the tide. There are three things to note about this ability: firstly, it’s a mass heal, rather than a targeted heal—you’re only healing one wound from each figure, but you’re healing multiple figures, including Saint Walker himself. Don’t use this power just to heal Saint Walker, unless in absolute extremis (e.g. he’s almost certain to die next turn otherwise)—he only has four uses of both his powers throughout the game, don’t waste a single one! Still, being able to heal Saint Walker while using it to heal others is great, and means that, if any enemies have tried to kill your support Lantern, but have failed to finish him off, this allows you to waste some of their effort. Always try to heal at least two different heroes with this power each time you use it, including Saint Walker himself if he’s hurt, and the more the better. This encourages using combined arms tactics in combat, making it more likely you have multiple wounded heroes on the front line rather than giving your opponent one character to focus on.

Secondly, like all healing abilities, it’s most valuable used on expensive, low-life, high-defence heroes, rather than anyone with a more balanced statline. Not that healing those characters is ever a bad idea, but Iron Man or a Green Lantern, for example, will get more out of healing than someone like Ozymandias or Superman, which is another reason he works well with Lanterns.

Finally, we have the fact that he can attack after using this power, which is a good reason to make use of his exceptional boosted statline, at least if you have a Green Lantern nearby. Beware, though: since you’re using this power and burning a marker before you attack, doing so does weaken your attack, dropping its range and attack by one. Still, being able to attack on your turn after mass-healing massively boosts his action efficiency, even so. This is a major reason you’ll want a Green Lantern on your team—it makes using him as a healer much more viable if you don’t have to basically cease attacking the enemy.

Hope Burns Bright
Perhaps his most interesting ability, though, is Instill Hope—a power that can boost someone’s attack to insane levels, as long as they’re surrounded by several enemies. You have to try to force multiple engagements at a time to make the most out of this—enemy army composition and the current battlefield situation massively alter the strength of this power. You’re going to want to engage at least two figures in order to make use of its power—fewer and you’re under-utilising it, but more than that might be prohibitively difficult to achieve, and not worth the hassle trying. If you can, though, do it! I imagine this might be easier in three or more player battles, but I’ve not actually tried him in one of those yet.

Like any attack boost, figures with multiple normal attacks benefit the most. Charging someone like Swordsman into a mob of enemy troops before activating Instill Hope should hopefully (I swear that pun was unintentional ...) result in him cutting a bloody swathe through anything that stands in his way. Don’t be too hesitant to make use of it on a single-attacking character, though, especially if taking him in a Green Lantern build. This is still a good way to make an already powerful attack (such as that of a fully-charged Lantern) earth-shattering, or even to make a lesser attack (such as that of a depleted Lantern) respectable to powerful. This guy can help to squeeze a lot more strength out of a faltering Lantern this way, and it can be a good way of making that order marker you put on them before you realised you’d have to burn a couple of markers to keep them alive worthwhile. This is especially useful for Guy Gardner and Hal Jordan, since both are able to hit more than once in one turn—Guy burning through his life or battery by using Wilful Overextend, and Hal if you roll well for Fearless Charge.

Remember, if using multiple attacks, hit the tougher figures first. Not only are they probably higher priority, they’re also less likely to die, and will need a higher attack to inflict significant damage on them. If you kill weaker figures first, you reduce the amount of figures surrounding your attacker, reducing Instill Hope’s boost and giving you less strength to punch through the armour of the tougher units.

Keeping Hope Alive
Saint Walker is a powerful figure, but that doesn’t matter if he’s dead. That being said, he doesn’t need to be protected too much early on. His seven defence, fully charged, is still quite solid, and remember: whenever he uses Blue Light of Hope, he heals by default. Therefore, it’s fairly beneficial to allow him to tank a couple of the enemy’s early hits before retreating to waste some of their firepower. Once he starts getting wounded (more than one wound on his card and he’s at risk) or his ring starts getting depleted, he should stay out of direct combat. Remember: unlike most Green or Yellow Lanterns, he does not have a Power Shield ability—as such, he can be killed by a good attack, and you can’t burn his battery to save him. Saint Walker, as established, gets four uses of his support powers before he’s drained, and each use is worth its weight in gold—don’t let him fall until he’s completely drained. At that point, it’s probably reasonable to treat him as a disposable, fragile roadblock.

There are a few suggestions for keeping him alive. Most importantly, keep him towards the back of your battleline, certainly after retreating s previously described—he needs to be close to the front to use his support abilities, but sometimes a single space can make all the difference when it comes to positioning. Make it so that enemy troops will likely need to break through or circumnavigate your front-line fighters to reach him. Use height and, if possible, jungle or shadow to protect him from ranged fire. Don’t be afraid to extract him if necessary: a leaving engagement attack is often preferable to letting him get bogged down and beaten up, and if you can avoid leaving engagement attacks and/or replace him with another character to bog his assailant down (say, by using Star-Lord’s Distracting Fire), do so. If you can’t, have your strong fighters engage and either destroy or distract any significant threat to him. Also, some other units may be able to use their abilities to protect him—Beat Cops and Aaron Cash are excellent, though require set-up, and don’t forget that many of the Green Lanterns you’ll likely be taking him with can burn through their battery power to protect adjacent allies. Last but not least: he does have that healing power. This can help him last a bit longer if necessary, but try to bring other wounded fighters towards him before using it.

Closing Thoughts

That’s it! Just remember, wherever you are and whatever you’re doing, there is always hope. Until next time, may the dice gods bless you with victory!
Total Comments 3

Comments

Old
IAmBatman's Avatar
Great write up! Sounds like a hypothetical, cheaper, low life/high defense Green Lantern could really unlock him!
Posted February 2nd, 2020 at 08:33 PM by IAmBatman IAmBatman is offline
Old
Ronin's Avatar
If only such a Lantern also had an unusual species for Star-Lord purposes.

Nice article, LO!
Posted February 2nd, 2020 at 10:13 PM by Ronin Ronin is offline
Old
Taeblewalker's Avatar
Nice!
Posted February 3rd, 2020 at 12:40 AM by Taeblewalker Taeblewalker is offline
 
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