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Dawn of a New King!

Danny Clark



The latest panel to play has just arrived from AMG, and it's well needed re-enforcements for the Inhumans. In this article, I'm giving my thoughts on the new characters and what the new box means for the Inhumans.




Let's start by taking a look at their new leader Maximus the Mad. I've mentioned this in previous review articles but I want to give another nod to the new style character art on these cards, it's such an improvement on the old cards and really makes the new cards pop.


Maximus is 4 threat, with a 2,3,5 defensive stat line. 5 mystic is obviously excellent but physical defence is arguably the most important defensive stat line in the game as it's the defensive stat used for collisions, and at just 2 physical defence, he's going to be really susceptible to collision damage. 6 health on either side is about average for a 4 threat and he's also a medium move and what appears to be a small base.


Looking at his attacks then, and Brain Freeze is his 5 dice range 4 mystic builder with a Suppressive trigger on each wild. Given the fact he's only 2 physical defence, a range 4 builder is nice as he can largely just stay on your backline out of the way of the way of anyone who wants to throw things at him. The power manipulation on the suppressive is also a nice little bonus.


Neuro Annihilation is his 9 dice, range 3 spender and costs 5 power. The defending character cant add additional dice to it's defence roll which seems fairly niche at first, but this also stops your opponent adding extra dice for crits. the stagger on a wild should also be fairly consistent when you're rolling 9 dice. I do think this fairly expensive though at 5 power given some of the other things he can do on his card and I'm not sure how much this is going to get used realistically.


And now we move on to his leadership, the first time each turn a character attacks or defends, during the modify dice step it must use this leadership and you re-roll 1 of it's attack or defence dice. If the re-rolled result is a skull, after the attack is resolved your opponent places that character within 1 of it's current position and then that character gains 1 power. So, I have a few problems with this leadership. The first is that you HAVE to use it on the first attack or defence roll, so you don't even get an option to choose when to use it. So you could roll 3/3 successes on your defence dice but then HAVE to re-roll, which could then lead to rolling a fail and you've subsequently now got a worse result. Then on top of this if you roll a skull on the re-roll, your opponent then gets to place you within 1 of your current position. So if your currently stood on a secure, you've now just been displaced from the said secure. The positives of generating 1 power and obtaining a re-roll just do not outweigh the negatives of the leadership. I'm really struggling to see when you would ever use this over the leadership options in the affiliation.


Moving on to his superpowers, Did You Forget Why You're Here? is a 2 power cost and is essentially a bow that we've seen on many other characters in the game before. This time though it has the stipulation that the character chosen must have an activated token which does limit it somewhat, but displacement tends to be a lot more effective on characters that have already activated anyway and for 2 power I still think it's something you can get a lot of benefit from.


It's Madness My Favourite Kind is very similar to the superpower that we've seen on Crimson Dynamo, when an enemy character within 3 makes and attack during the modify dice step, you can make this character re-roll two of it's attack dice. This is super effective on Crimson Dynamo and it's something that's going to be super effective on Maximus too, not only does it potentially reduce incoming damage but it can potentially turn triggers off too and for 2 power, if your playing Maximus, this is likely something that you'll be using a lot.


He's also got the generic Inhuman re-roll as well as immunity to Poison which again, we see on most of the Inhumans.



And now we move on to the King Himself, the new Black Bolt! The first thing to point out is his alter ego is the same as the current Black Bolt so they wont be able to hit the table together. With 4/4/4 defences and a 7/8 health statline, this aligns with what we've seen from a lot of other recent 6 threats so there's no surprises here. He is a medium move and what appears to be a medium base so he's going to be fairly mobile.


Looking at his attacks, Sonic Boom is his 5 dice range 4 energy beam. A point to note here, although the wording suggests he only gains 1 power after the attack is resolved, this applies to every attack in the beam, so he can generate more than just 1 flat power from this attack. The Size 3 push is also fantastic here given the fact this also applies to every attack in the beam, so he's capable of some really heavy displacement should you hit the trigger.


Wrath of the Midnight King is his spender which costs 4 power. An 8 dice range 3 physical attack doesn't sound all that great but the spice here is in the wording on the attack. He gets a free advance which doesn't require any sort of trigger and on a wild he also gets a sizeless short throw. These are both excellent, with the medium advance giving him some action economy in being able to move and attack in one action, and having the ability to throw any character in the game regardless of their size opens up so many options.


Increase The Volume is his first active superpower, and for 3 power you can add 2 dice to his next attack action. Note, because it says next attack action and not next attack, if you were to use this on his beam, this will add extra dice to every beam, not just the first one. So a 7 dice beam onto 3 or 4 characters with the potential for a push on each one can be absolutely devasting and this is where Black Bolt is going to really shine. Note, this isn't one per turn either so he can boost both of his beam attacks up to 7 dice, that's going to be a LOT of dice rolled if you can get multiple characters under the beam.


Black Bolt also has a hit and run, which as with his spender, gives him plenty of options for his action economy. Chaining this with his spender and getting two medium moves off the back of one attack seems really good and on that medium base he's going to be able to travel a fair distance.


Telepathic Command costs him two power, and he can advance an allied character within 4 short. This is an excellent superpower and gives you lots of flexibility on how you want to use it. It can be used to undo displacement on an already activated character, it can be used to move characters into attack range of enemy characters and help with their own action economy, it can be used to move characters away and out of attack range of enemy characters. It does have the stipulation that it can only be used once per turn, but for two power this is something your likely going to be using on a regular basis.


Moving on to his innate superpowers, Black Bolt has the standard DR1 as well as generating an additional power in the power phase - this alongside his beam means he's never going to be short on power. He also has the innate Inhuman re-roll as well as immunity to poison and flight. At the start of the activation phase, Black Bolt can also choose a character with the Inhuman superpower and remove 1 special condition from it. There's no range restriction or specifics around which conditions, this is going to be super useful for removing annoying conditions like stun and stagger.


And now on to the tactics cards, and we've had 3 revealed from this box. And probably the biggest shock here, is Inhuman Queen. Inhumans aren't just getting one leader from this box, they're getting two as this is a leadership card for Medusa! I like this leadership a lot better than the other leadership in this box and it's very similar to the Malekith leadership only rather than another allied character gaining a power, healing and then advancing it's the character that made the daze or KO. I still don't think it's better than their current leadership on the existing Black Bolt but I think this one is at least playable and gives you an option to play a leadership on a 4 threat leader rather than on a 5 threat with the existing Black Bolt. Medusa is also an excellent character to have on the table and a character your probably often bringing with you anyway.


Plots within Plots is another good addition to the Inhumans lineup and requires Maximus to play. 4 power feels a bit steep at first until you realise the effect of the card lasts the whole round and free movement always feels really powerful. I like this card and if Maximus is hitting the table for you I think this is probably stapled to him.


Genetic Prophecy is the final card to be revealed and this is another one I really like. So this can be used with either Black Bolt as it stipulates Blackagar Boltagon rather than King Black Bolt. It does require you to be at least 2 VP's behind but the card is essentially giving you a free 2 VP's at the cost of Black Bolt not making any attack actions for this round. I think this card is probably better played on King Black Bolt as he's got a lot more options on his card to contribute to the game without attacking than current Black Bolt. I do like this card, but I think it's hugely situational on the board state as to whether this gets played. I think it's something your probably going to include in your roster but it wont be an every game card.


In conclusion, whilst I think Maximus has something to offer the affiliation as a character I don't think we'll be seeing his leadership used much and Black Bolt seems like he's a really solid 6 threat without being over tuned. This take may seem a little bit out there, but I think the Medusa leadership is the biggest gain in what we've seen so far from this box. I'm eagerly awaiting the Karnak and Gorgon reveals to see what the other half of this box has to offer!


As always thank you for reading, and keep being Omega!




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