by Jay Solomon
Hello, and welcome to another iteration of Why Don’t I Play This Piece?. This week, I’ll be taking a look at an older piece that synergizes well with the recent Batman set, as well as all the animals we’ve been getting recently. This time, I’m looking at Ace the Bathound.
Ace the Bathound has the Batman Ally team ability, which gives the user Stealth. He also has two traits and a special power:
(Trait) SUPER SNOOPER SLEUTH: Adjacent friendly characters can use Improved Targeting: Ignores Hindering Terrain to target characters within 6 squares of Ace the Bathound.
This trait will turn everyone next to Ace into a Stealth-buster! There are some notable competitive threats with Stealth, including Shredder Clone, Mini Shredder, the Blackbird, Uni-Mind (picking it via Sersi), and Title Batgirl. There are also a fair amount of support pieces that are common and use Stealth, including Unseen, JW050 Penguin, HAHA Joker, and Pip the Troll. Having the ability to ignore Stealth gives a lot of offensive coverage, whether it’s primary threats, or common support pieces. Also, even if your opponent’s team isn’t using Stealth, being able to ignore the hindering terrain defense modifier can make a big difference for the numbers you’ll need to hit for range attacks.
(Trait) UGH….CATS: Ace the Bathound modifies his attack value by +1 when attacking a character with the Animal keyword.
While the Animal keyword isn’t the most common in competitive Modern games (Alyosha still being a possibility in ROC Age), there are still some characters with it to keep in mind, including all the Serpent and Ape pogs, Lockjaw, Giganto and Namor, Devil Dinosaur, King Shark, and Hellcow (if you’re playing in Canada). Overall, it doesn’t appear to add many points to Ace based on the stats and powers, so it’ll be randomly useful while not inflating his cost too much.
(Damage Special Power) UTILITY BAT COLLAR: Give Ace the Bathound a free action to choose a standard damage power that you didn’t choose during your last turn. Ace the Bathound can use that power until your next turn.
Pick a power is nothing new to competitive players, and Ace packs a very respectable version of it in his small package of a point investment. Only having access to damage powers is still good, since the vast majority of non-damage powers are offensive anyhow (outside of Telekinesis), meaning that those would be powers you’d see on a character on a character in a different point class. For 50 points, most of what you’ll need is covered, although you’ll need to keep in mind that you can’t choose the same power twice in a row, so proper planning is required.
Overall, Ace’s defenses and overall combat values are respectable (taking choosing Exploit Weakness or Close Combat Expert into account for some offensive power), as well as being a good team player, with his Improved Targeting trait and support powers. In addition 50 points is just enough to call in almost all relevant call-ins, but Ace can also present a decent offensive threat in addition to that. Having access to Probability Control alone can be very useful to a generic theme team that Ace is on, such as an Animal one.
As far as map choice goes when playing Ace, ignoring hindering terrain for line of fire also both mitigates the threat of, and makes playing on the Wakanda map better. Being able to take advantage of what is normally a universal benefit of a map while depriving your opponent of that benefit will allow your team to take full advantage of the map, a 0-point game element, and really swing the math of the game in your favor. Other maps that can be useful are the Sporting Arena (especially with the addition of the Boxing Ring for the map bonus), Poison Ivy’s Greenhouse, and Gotham City Downtown.
The team that I’ve built with Ace the Bathound takes advantage of a recent addition to the Gotham City keyword, with Title Batgirl, while also utilizing some older characters with the keyword.
50 WKDP16-003 Ace the Bathound
70 BTAS052 Batgirl, Shadow of the Bat
-6 SFSMS101 Symbiote
25 FFJW004 The Penguin
75 JW003B Anarky
50 JW060 The Joker
3 XXSXID-010 Chamber
5 XXSXID-025 Wolverine
5 WKMVID-012 Professor X
3 MVID-018 Cyclops Student ID card
5 DCID The Joker
3 JWS100 The Joker’s Gas Canister
300
Sideline: XXS041 Chamber, XXS053 Wolverine, XXS037A Professor X, XXS037B Professor X, XXS052 Cyclops, XXS063 Cyclops, BTAS003 The Joker, BTAS054 The Joker, BTAS067 Wonder Woman
Maps: ADW Wakanda, BTAS Gotham City Downtown, WK Wizkids Office
This team is all about board control, as well as being able to strike from far away with good swing. Title Batgirl has a very big threat range, thanks to her ability to move, then use her Title Ability to use Charge at no cost. Anarky’s bombs will give your opponent a hard time when approaching your team, while Batgirl can sit in the starting area and accumulate Plot Points, attacking Penguin to avoid the damage from using Title Abilities. The call-ins that this team brings in, such as Cyclops, will have great range and stats, thanks to Penguin’s Loyalty Marker, lots of Probability Control, as well as a possibility of two Perplexes from Ace and Batgirl.
That’s all I have for this week. Thanks for reading, and remember that whether you’re playing the established competitive pieces, or practicing a Fringe figure, practice makes your team better.
