How to Make Out - Feature Friday Poison Ivy

This Friday, you're going to learn how to make out. Well, it's more of a feature of Poison Ivy.  There are a few ways in the game to take any model from full health to dead but Poison Ivy has at first glance the easiest method. The Arkham Origin's Poison Ivy's Mortal Kiss does not rely on chance unlike Ra's' Deadly Strike or Joker's One Shot Gun. Just by being on the board makes Poison Ivy a dangerous foe. So, let's talk about making out.

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How To Make Out
It takes 2 Special to make Ivy's Grabs Mortal Kisses.  This means another Special must be spent for a Special Attack action to Grab.  That's 3 SC that needs to be spent for the setup. Most models wouldn't let themselves be vulnerable to this, so some false sense of safety might be required.  Chlorokinesis lets Poison Ivy teleport to different locations, possibly catching foes unawares and unprepared for a sudden kiss.  For those counting at home, yes we've just spent 4 SC but that's possible due to Poison Ivy being Scientific.

This doesn't leave a lot of dice left to attack.  Fortunately, it's easy to max out Poison Ivy's attack. Unfortunately, that's because her Attack is 3 which makes her Mortal Kiss fairly easy to block.  With Ivy's Will Power being 8, it is quite possible for a 3 Attack Mortal Kiss backed by Chlorokinesis with even a spare die to be placed in Defense. Once Poison Ivy has spent her 3 Special for a Mortal Kiss Grab, any successful hits need to also do damage.  No damage, no kisses. Poison Ivy can pull the Mortal Kiss off herself, it would be easier with setup.

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Setup

Ivy luckily brings her own setup, it just takes patience. With Discourage, she can reduce a model's Will Power so they have less dice to defend against her advance. It's even possible to setup on a model that Poison Ivy has previously Hypnotized. More realistically, you're going to need friends.

Simple Numerical Inferiority will reduce defense by one if Poison Ivy only has one other friend.  If she has a bunch of models have already dog piled on a grab, then their Defense can be really low. There is always the simple answer of being Knocked Down - their Defense is lowered to 2 and they cannot spend dice to defend. Sounds like a perfect time for a Mortal Kiss.

The last bit to really improve Poison Ivy's odds is a Titan Dose.  Titan raises all stats by one. Since Mortal Kiss has so many potential failure points, Titan is a welcome improvement to the entire process.  Raising Ivy's Will Power means she can spread dice where they're needed.  Attack 4 is both harder to block and allows for more potential. Finally, if she does land the Mortal Kiss then the Strength 4+ is quite welcome to a previously wimpy Strength of 5+.

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Counters

First, the easiest counter to Mortal Kiss is merely diligence.  With Poison Ivy's low Strength of 5+, mediocre Attack of 3 and requiring four dice to get a return of one attack, it's easy to make Mortal Kiss inefficient. Most models Ivy would want to kill have high Defense, so some dice in Defense would further be problematic for Ivy to land a Mortal Kiss.  Models that she would easily be able to kiss, she probably wouldn't bother with trying - perhaps your goons should just take it on the chin.

Batman, and his extended family, also tend to have Bat Armour of some degree, creating yet another hoop for Poison Ivy to jump through.  Sometimes just making it too difficult or unreliable is enough to persuade Poison Ivy to go do something else instead of go for the kill.  Sitting on an objective can garner more points than a KO or Casualty. It's just gravy when both happen.

In addition to making Poison Ivy's life difficult is models that are flat out immune to her wiles.  After all, size matters and Big characters cannot be grabbed by non-Big characters. This means that a whole suite of characters will be hunting Poison Ivy down to punch her ticket.  Even non-Big "Button Men" might just make it too dangerous for Poison Ivy, they can just turn around and murder her.  Your opponent would risk it as well, as Poison Ivy is Scientific so that is an extra Victory Point no matter her position in a gang's hierarchy.  Ivy could easily become the hunted, which is compounded by characters like Zsasz's Death Marks.

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Synergy

The Sirens, as depicted above and below in Ivy's embrace, might be the first thought of how to setup with Poison Ivy but I would disagree.  Poison Ivy has Affinity for Bane and Penguin.  She would take up a slot as a Free Agent, but Penguin doesn't particularly care with Charisma. In fact, he's the most flexible list builder in the game and adding Poison Ivy's deadliest to that flexibility would make many opponents uncertain.

Combining Free Agents might be the best solution to shore up Poison Ivy's weaknesses, whether she is a Leader or hired by Penguin or Bane. Penemue previously discussed the superiority of The Riddler. His Disarray may strip dice out of Defense, with Confusion lowering their Defensive stat.  Copperhead falls under the "waif-fu" category of models and while I previously extolled the virtues of the Defensive use of Acrobats, Copperhead has Technique which assists in a model's most helpless state. An example of synergy would be The Riddler using Persuasion to make a model act first, Copperhead using Technique to make them helpless and with the model already having acted, they cannot stand to defend from Poison Ivy's Mortal Kiss.

Granted, this setup would be more in Penguin's Charisma-based hiring process than Bane's.  While the Penguin has the best Henchman around, there's more synergy with Conqueror Penguin's Power Strike.  With Penguin's Mob and many of his men having Mobster, they readily aid in lowering defense to setup for the Mortal Kiss.  Sickle and the Titan Penguin are Brutal, which increases the possibilities of Knock Down for Ivy to help finish a model off.  Penguin himself has Persuasive to help setup a situation for a model to be out of position as well.  The Penguin is truly synergistic with Poison Ivy.

On the other hand, Bane is currently only fielding his Henchmen that do a lot of Blood damage.  Fielding Poison Ivy might be more of a distraction than a credible threat.

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Final Thoughts

I'd like to thank Deviant Art and Google Image Search for making this a difficult article to write. Otherwise, now that you know how to make out... Happy smooching!