On a side note, there seems to be a curse surrounding "Doctor" characters - both Doc Ock in the first poll and Dr. Doom in this one were the lowest vote-getters, meaning that they'll drop off until a later, arbitrary time.
Our next poll is once again ready to go. You can find that here. If you haven't signed up for Board Game Geek yet, do so here. And, of course, join our guild - then you'll be able to participate in the polls. Each time, I'll remove the one who got the least votes, so two will remain from before and two will be new.
I don't know much about Hawkeye beyond what we saw in The Avengers movie. I'll say that I appreciate these people who don't have any particular "super" ability, they're just people with an intensely trained skill. That's pretty awesome - though in a battle of Hawkeye and Green Arrow, I'll take Arrow every time.
The Die
Hawkeye offers bolt energy and has a TFC of just one. He is very offensively skewed.
I don't like level three of this die. For one energy, you get one additional point of defense. That's not a great bargain. Still, you're getting a decent offensive threat for very little cost, especially when you factor in the purchase cost of his cards.
Aesthetically, this die works. Purple isn't my favorite, but he wears it like royalty. I don't have any major construction issues with my Hawkeye dice either.
The Card
Hawkeye carries the Avengers affiliation and is rather inexpensive to purchase.
Thematically, Hawkeye's abilities are about direct damage and targeted attacks. This fits well with his sharpshooting background. He has three forms - common, uncommon, and rare.
- Longbow - 4 cost - When fielded, Hawkeye deals his attack value in damage to target opposing character.
- Br'er Hawkeye - 3 cost - Spin characters damaged by Hawkeye to level 1
- Robin Hood - 3 cost - When assigning damage in the attack step, Hawkeye's damage assigns and resolves first.
"Longbow" is very popular and with good reason - he's a very effective assassin, and with his low TFC and "when fielded" trigger, it's easy to make this recur over and over again.
"Br'er Hawkeye" has big pros and big cons. On the one hand, spinning characters down prevents opponents from having the option to do so against someone like Tsarina. Conversely, since the opponent controls the blockers, they could simply block with Beast, who has the level one burst, and now it benefits them.
"Robin Hood" is a nice option for dealing with characters that have four-or-lower defense. Since his damage assigns and resolves before anyone else's, that means that anyone that he KOs doesn't deal any damage. He may pair well with some blocker control, like Deadpool. The drawback is that you could unwittingly roll out some "when damaged" effects that you don't intend. I'm not yet sure what happens if "Robin Hood" attacks and, say, "Green Goliath" is assigned as a blocker. This is probably a die that you want as a blocker rather than attacker.
My Favorite
Longbow, the common, is my favorite here. He's a great part of Avengers teams and the ease of recurring (low defense + when-fielded trigger) him makes it easy to bring him back again and again.
I see the cons to "Br'er Hawkeye" as too significant. With Beast an important part of many teams, especially in the "Mutate 666" variety but also in the "Genetic Expert" form to an extent, I don't want my opponent dictating who gets spun down. On the other hand, if I block with Hawkeye, I get a choice. Still, with very low defense and a "damage" trigger on this one, I'm hesitant.
I've been using Robin Hood in my teams almost exclusively as a blocker, unless I am making a push int he late game. He is especially useful with getting rid of Human Torch.
ReplyDeleteI'm not a huge fan of having someone solely for blocking, personally, unless they offer utility outside of the blocking; I use Gambit to block, for example, because I want him to go to prep so that I can use his ability again.
DeleteI'm surprised to see someone attacking with Human Torch - though I suppose if you forced your opponent into it with a global that might do it. Still, if I needed him off the board that badly, I'd let the damage go through so that he ends up in used rather than prep, where he could always return.
Still, I'd love to see more about how you're finding effective ways to use Robin Hood - I feel like there's a good concept there, I just haven't used it yet. Plus, we have a FAQTalk dedicated to that coming up...
I've come up against a couple teams where Human Torch - Playing with Fire is the predominate attacker. Cheap to field, don't attack, bring in some sidekicks on the next turn and he's a heavy hitter. With Hawkeye - Robin Hood and either Mr. Fantastic or Phoenix's global I can force him out and send him off. Yes he comes back around, but he's either in the same position as last round, or gets turned into energy.
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