Now that the dust has settled on the recent mutant release, I thought it was time to write an article on the character that is quickly emerging as one of my favourite characters to use in the game, Nightcrawler!
Character Card
At first glance at his card, Nightcrawler has a lot going on, with the only difference between his healthy and injured sides is he drops from 6 health on his healthy side to 5 on his injured. With 4/3/3 defences and with a 6/5 health split, this is about average for a 4 threat character. While he is only a medium move on a small base, he's got a lot more movement tech to help him get around which we'll look at later in the article.
Teleporting Strike is Nightcrawlers builder, with an automatic stun as long as the target character is outside of Range 2. There can be some confusion around this attack, as the wording on the stun states "after damage is dealt" - this just relates to the timing window of when the stun is applied rather than indicating that damage must be dealt to give the stun. This is a fantastic builder as stun is a potent condition, especially against some of the meta pieces that we are currently seeing in the game like Ultron. The fact it's also automatic and doesn't need to rely on a dice trigger or damage is also really strong.
And now we move on to the really fun parts of Kurt's kit. Brimstone Blitz is his spender, which only costs 1 power and you add dice to the attack equal to the number of times he's been placed this turn. On a crit and a hit he triggers Flurry of Blows and he gets to make the same attack again into the same character. Now a point to note here - the wording on this states he may make an "additional attack action" - so he can either use his builder or the spender again, if you chose the spender, you must pay the 1 power again to use the attack, and the Flurry of Blows can keep triggering as long as you keep rolling a hit and a crit in the attack.
Now, this is where his kit gets even more interesting when we look at BAMF and Puff of Smoke. BAMF allows Nightcrawler to spend 1 to 3 power to place with X of himself, where X is the amount of power spent. And Puff of Smoke allows Nightcrawler to place within 2 of a target character after he's made an attack against them. A point to note again here, damage is not required, it's a 0 cost superpower so doesn't cost him anything and it's a "may" move, so he's not forced into doing so. Not only do these superpowers make Nightcrawler incredibly mobile, but they synergise with his Brimstone Blitz by increasing the amount of dice for that attack, which in turn increases the likelihood of hitting the Flurry of Blows trigger. Each time you make the attack, it in turn triggers Puff of Smoke, which then adds another dice to the Brimstone Blitz attack. This really is an incredibly high ceiling in terms of how many attacks he can potentially make into a single character, but it is limited by his power, as he needs to spend a power each time to keep making the attack. Nevertheless, it's really fun slot machine mechanic.
Unglaubich Acrobatics is Nightcrawler's next superpower and allows him to add 2 extra defence dice when he get's targeted by an attack. This is welcomed defence tech on a character that would first appear to be fairly squishy.
Another piece of defence tech, and another superpower which massively helps with his survivability is his Invisible in Shadow, which effectively gives him stealth as long as he's within Range 1 of a Size 2 or more terrain piece.
Kurt also has access to Wallcrawler, further aiding his movement capabilities.
Tactics Cards
Kurt also brings an interesting card to the game in Mass Transit. This an Active: Action card which up until the new Core Box release, we had never seen before. This means, Nightcrawler must be the active character when you play the card, and will also cost him one of this actions to use it. For 3 power this allows Nightcrawler to choose up to three other allied characters within 2, he then places within 3 of himself, and the other characters selected then place within 1 of Nightcrawler. After this is resolved he then gains stagger. At first glance, this card sounds amazing, moving 3 characters such a long distance is a powerful effect, but when we look at the other hoops this card brings we start to notice a few issues. Firstly, given how power hungry Nightcrawler is going to be, 3 power is a fair chunk for him to pay when he has so many good ways of spending power. Secondly, this costing him one of his actions initially and then subsequently giving him stagger, means your probably going to have two sub par activations with him. Is that worth the effect of placing up to 3 characters such a long way? I'm going to sit on the fence and say potentially, there's probably a lot of caveats there on how impactful the activations become with the characters you've placed, but for me, this is a card I leave at home.
Conclusion
Regardless of how impactful you feel Nightcrawler is on the table, there's no denying that he feels incredibly thematic and incredibly fun to use. He's got an interesting and unique kit, coupled with a really high ceiling on what he can do in one activation. He can be anywhere he wants to be, he can hand out stun on a regular basis, crippling the power economy for your opponent, and he's got the potential to kill whatever he likes with his Brimstone Blitz. But to reach that ceiling, he needs a massive amount of power over the course of the game, and a little bit of luck in hitting his triggers on his spenders, so balances out quite well. Having access to an auto stun on his builder still gives him a really respectable floor though, so even if power generation becomes an issue, he's still a valuable asset to your team.
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