The Book of Blue Beetle (Ted Kord)

[dok]

Originally Posted by capsocrates

Wow.

uh, yeah.

[SirGalahad]

Is that a good wow or a concerned wow?

[caps]

Originally Posted by SirGalahad

Is that a good wow or a concerned wow?

All of the above?

A 30% chance to prevent another hero from attacking anything at all for the rest of the round? And it can't be bypassed by Special Attacks? An explosion attack that can mass-remove OMs?

dok may have some mind-bending combo in mind that I'm not aware of, but just by himself Blue Beetle looks very good; sometime impossible to beat if you don't have some bonding flexibility and/or an auto-wounder. Very, very good in cleanup.

[IAmBatman]

The key is to not let him stick around until clean up - or if he decides not to drop until very late, make him pay for it by taking out all the rest of his team and possibly preventing him from dropping at all.

Or, of course, you could always ignore him until end game, and hope that what you have left is more than enough to hang on versus his 4 attack and 4 defense, even losing a few turns.

IF his D20s are hot, he can be very good, but if they're not, it's a very different game.

I found him very fun, but not gamebreaking or anything.

[weebaer]

Originally Posted by IAmBatman

The key is to not let him stick around until clean up

Unless of course he hits his d20 roll while you are trying to kill him and watches while you have limited ability to attack

or if he decides not to drop until very late, make him pay for it by taking out all the rest of his team and possibly preventing him from dropping at all.

making sure you stay spaced out will be key.

Or, of course, you could always ignore him until end game, and hope that what you have left is more than enough to hang on versus his 4 attack and 4 defense, even losing a few turns.

The "and hope" makes me nervous for a 160 point figure

I am interested to see how he turns out in SLH though. With his 4 life and 4 defense he can go down very easily. He just has to miss his rolls.

[TrollBrute]

Originally Posted by weebaer

I am interested to see how he turns out in SLH though. With his 4 life and 4 defense he can go down very easily. He just has to miss his rolls.

Yeah, I found that out in a test I ran earlier. He dropped and did a fair amount of damage on his attack, but then missed both his Strobe rolls and went down in two hits. My first reaction was similar to dok's and caps', and I still feel like he has a lot of potential for a 160 point figure, but if his D20 rolls are bad, he'll go down in a hurry.

[Lord Pyre]

He's awesome for his points, yes. So awesome he's game breaking, no. Nothing on the card is too ridiculous, he's just going to make it in a ton of crime fighter armies!

[IAmBatman]

If you don't wait to attack him until endgame, spacing out your OMs can really, really limit the effect of the Strobe.

[dok]

I'd guess he's worth 250 or more. Nothing in the playtests makes me think otherwise. He won most of his 1v1s despite (I assume) not having access to the incredible Bug Drop power. In the other games, he was buried in relative large armies, were a figure like him isn't going to win all of his games by himself. Despite that this teams won a large majority.

Obviously he has synergy with the Crime Fighters, but really, you can drop him in any build. Bug Drop lets you basically pick when to bring him in when his attack can be most devastating. No OMs are required to get him in position, and he can swap out OMs with any frontline figure, so he has synergy with any army that puts OMs near the front.

What this guy buys you is not raw beat power (unless you're playing against an army that depends on adjacency bonuses or has a packed startzone). You're buying improved efficiency for your army and reduced efficiency for your opponent.

[greygnarl]

The key is to not let him stick around until clean up - or if he decides not to drop until very late, make him pay for it by taking out all the rest of his team and possibly preventing him from dropping at all.

Both of these things are impossible to do.

[Hahma]

From what I read of the tests, he had some pretty lucky d20's going for his Special attack to remove an OM. Rolling a 16+ that many times with limited opportunities shouldn't be considered the norm. Sure it happens, but over the long run, he's not going to be removing OM's that easy. I know I've been trying it for years with Iceman, and it certainly doesn't happen often.

[IAmBatman]

Originally Posted by greygnarl

Both of these things are impossible to do.

Huh? I did put an "or" in that clause - I'm not implying you do them both, but that you do one or the other, depending on how your opponent uses him. If you kill off all of his teammates because your opponent decided to hold off on him until end game, and your opponent ends up not having any figures on the battlefield before Blue Beetle has dropped, you win the game, and BB's out of luck.