And so, we've reached the final article in the Deep Dive series, Blob and Pyro are around the corner so once they've been released and I've had sufficient game time with them I will be writing articles on both of those. To round out the series for now though, we're going to be taking a look at Colossus. Before we start the rest of the article, I'll make it clear that I've not played a huge amount of games with Colossus compared to the other characters we've looked at in past articles, but I have had some recent games with him for the purposes of writing this article.
Born in Siberia, Piotr Rasputin is a mutant with a skin of steel and a heart of gold. He can transform his entire body into organic metal, granting him superhuman strength, durability, and stamina. Colossus is a gentle giant, however he is sometimes reluctant to use his physical strength in combat, feeling a responsibility to use his powers to improve the lives of mutants and humankind.
Character Card
Colossus is a 4 threat character with 6 health on his healthy side, a slow move (but he is on a medium base) and a 4/3/3 defensive stat line which is pretty average for a 4 threat character.
Moving on to his attacks and his builder, Strike, is a range 2, 5 dice physical attack. On a wild the attack gains Concussive Force - after the attack is resolved the character loses 1 power.
His spender X-Slam is a range 2, 7 dice physical attack that costs 3 power to use. The target automatically gains Stun after the attack is resolved, and on a wild the target also gains Stagger. I'm never a fan of characters that only have access to range 2 attacks (spoiler alert) without a charge or any form of additional movement outside of using an action. The stun and stagger on this attack is nice, but he has a serious problem with action economy if he gets displaced or has to move before he attacks.
His first superpower is Playing Catch. For 3 power Colossus can choose an interactive terrain feature of size 3 or less and within range 2 and throw it medium.
Big Brother costs Colossus 2 power, when an allied character within 2 of this character is targeted by an attack, this character may use this superpower. This character becomes the target of the attack regardless of range and LOS. This is essentially just another name for bodyguard. This is arguably his best superpower, to have a bodyguard ability on such a naturally tanky character means he can probably do this a few times before you have to worry about him getting dazed or KO'd. Note there is also no stipulation on here about it being limited to once per turn, so as long as he has the power, he can continue being a meat shield (or is that a steel shield?).
Bozne Moi for 2 power lets Colossus add two dice to his defence roll if he is targeted by a physical or energy attack. Yet another tool in his locker that just adds to his ability to stay alive.
Organic Steel is his innate superpower - when this character would suffer damage from an enemy effect reduce the amount suffered by 1 to a minimum of 1. There's a theme developing with these superpowers isn't there?
Colossus is also immune to Bleed.
There is a slight change on his injured side - where he goes from 6 to 7 health. Boize Moi also changes, moving to an innate superpower with no power cost - this now changes so Colossus adds blanks in his defence rolls to his total successes, instead of gaining the two additional dice.
Tactics Cards
The following cards are including in the box that are useable by Colossus:
Indomitable - easily the best card in the box - when an allied character would be thrown or pushed by an enemy effect it may spend 2 power to play this card. The allied character is not pushed or thrown. This is a great card no matter who or what your playing and always has a use. Denying a character a push or a throw can be really meaningful in the right situation. Colossus also likes this card as he's exceptionally immune to throws and pushes due to his lack of action economy - he's also size 3 so that's potentially going to hurt if he gets thrown into someone.
Fastball Special is the final card in the box that can be used by Colossus and also involves Wolverine. If Colossus is within range 2 of an allied Wolverine, both may spend 1 power to play this card. Throw the allied Wolverine medium, and he does not suffer collision damage during this throw. Enemy characters that he collides with roll 2 fewer dodge dice and suffer the Bleed special condition. I like this card, not only is it thematic, but it can potentially get a lot of damage through too if you throw Wolverine at a character with this card. The biggest downside to this, is that it's Wolverine and Colossus - two characters that are considered rather underwhelming.
Where Does He Fit In Affiliation?
Ok, so yes I just used the word underwhelming to describe Colossus and I think for the most part that rings true. But lets look at this objectively. I'm of the opinion that Colossus does something really well, and that's to just simply tank damage, if you can get the power to him, he can potentially bodyguard with a Bozne Moi every turn and that's ideal for keeping one of your big hitters alive in someone like Magneto or Scarlet Witch for example. All that extra power under Magneto's leadership really benefits Colossus and I think that's probably the best home for him. My biggest problem in using him this way, is there's just cheaper or more effective characters in the game that fulfil this same role (Luke Cage, Okoye, and Steve Rogers are just three examples off the top of my head).
He also really struggles when he has to rely on his own power generation as he doesn't tend to generate enough power to be effective in doing what he wants to do. Unless he's tanking damage or throwing himself in front of attacks he's not really contributing to the game in any other way, granted he has a terrain throw, but he doesn't have any form of displacement, and he's not really going to be doing a massive amount of damage. We've already highlighted the fact he only has access to range 2 attacks without any form of additional movement which really hurts his action economy, and add in to the fact he's also a slow mover really adds to this detriment.
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