Another Wednesday, another First Impressions! This time, the reworked Core Box Models!
Admittedly I wasn’t even sure I should do First Impressions on these models as they are by and large the characters we already know and love, is there enough teeth to really do a whole article? And so I skipped doing coverage on Green Goblin. But this morning AMG was kind enough to show us multiple characters in one go. And as a heads up, we’ll skip Captain America as we already covered him for the Ministravaganza. So without further ado, I re-introduce to you….
Honestly a super simple change here, bringing Friday AI’s cost down from 3 to 2. Which quite honestly is a bit scary. Tony posting up on a secure chaining range 4, 6 dice Repulsor Blasts for the rest of the game sounds really strong. And if he ever gets too hot on power? Helios Laser Bombardment. New Tony is a compelling addition to Sam Spam, I’ve already seen some players running him just for his tank stats but now that he can reliably do work on offense I expect his play rates to rise QUITE a bit, both with and without Hulkbuster in the roster for flexibility.
Next up we have one of the worst offenders from the core box…
Captain Marvel has been one of the more maligned core box favorites thanks to her oppressive superpower costs and un-impressive attacks thanks to not being able to live in Binary Form. But fear no more! Binary Form goes down in cost, her throw goes up to Size 4, and immunity incinerate for good measure! Fixing Binary Form power economy would have been enough to get her to see play in A-Force and Avengers lists so the throw and immunity is just gravy. I’ve seen a couple games where due to opponent misplay Captain Marvel has been able to live in Binary Form for most of the game and its a huge headache, now you can’t even Incinerate her to bring her defenses back down.
And to round out this trio of makeovers we get…
Poor, poor Ultron. I remember back in the early days when his sole purpose was being a Drop Off caddy for Venom. Then, they banned Drop Off and he quickly fell further and further down the list of playable Cabal affiliated 4s. This rework is exactly what he needed. Strike goes up to 6 dice so it isn’t a joke, Energy Blast gets wild Incinerate, his throw becomes size 4, and Analyze and Annihilate becomes a new (but similar!) passive. These all come together to make for a REALLY compelling Cabal Ultron. His defensive stats were always more than acceptable, it was just his attacks and power economy that were in question. These attacks are WAY better and thanks to Analyze and Annihilate becoming a passive (thats going to help you do damage/incinerate more) I don’t think Ultron is going to have power issues any more. In fact, I’m not sure if Red Skull Cabal fits in the current meta but a tanky beater fits into Sin Cabal just fine, especially with a medium base + medium move – round 1 sprint for the enemy B/F point to force a Sin roll, then go to town with your 6 dice strike and maybe throw a size 4 truck on round 2.
Also, a quick note about Analyze and Annihilate that I feel the AMG article really glossed over, the rerolls happen BEFORE you resolve crits. So you don’t have exploded dice available to reroll but if you reroll into a crit it DOES explode. Keep that in mind!
That’s all the goodies AMG has given us today, and TBH I’m quite excited to see what else is in store alongside these changes. They’ve consistently shown through each character re-worked so far that they understand who isn’t getting love and what needs to be done to bring them in line, which gives me hope for all the other unloved characters from the early days of the game.
That will wrap us up for this First Impressions article here on acrossthebifrost.com, make sure to check out the Roster Doctor on Facebook, Youtube and Anchor.Fm!
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