Commit or Quit - Tactia Tuesday

The Batman Miniature Game is awesome because of all the characters and flavour that they provide to this game. The one thing that I notice whenever I witness or run demos is Batman sure is derpy. This sort of behaviour continues for a few games until a beginner gets their Bat-Feet and figures out how to kick ass. Some could blame this on anti-beginners luck or the strength of all of the characters. I think it is more to blame with the siren call of the system itself. You can create a narrative of how your models are acting with allocation.  Let's get those few awkward games out of the way.

Batman using DerpGlare by Chingilin

Why does Batman flub? I mean, he's supposed to be so good that he defeated Captain America by looking at him until they both decided to talk. Others might say that Captain America did the same feat but they're liars. There are a few mechanics that make the game fun because even the biggest expert can fail to take out a chump and a chump can take down an expert. 1s auto-miss and 6s auto-hit, leading to situations where Batman can't land a single blow against an opponent yet a blind Henchman can land a haymaker.

Speaking of Henchmen, the average Henchman has access to Defence 3. This means 33% of all attacks against these models fail. It doesn't matter how skillful you are or not, unless you're a Masterfighter you're probably going to find a few hits fall short. When attacking Elite Henchmen and many skillful Free Agents the Defence is 4. That's 50% of all attacks hit or miss. Only absolute defensive powerhouses have Defence 5, which still has 33% of all attacks manage to strike. And that's before considering how much dice are allocated in Defence.

The point I'm trying to make is that even average models are quite tough. If you want to play a mini-game of "I want model X" to survive, it's quite possible. That's why the Leader Assassination Scenarios are hard to complete. If you want your favourite model to survive, all you need to do is hop in Sewers or even utilize mobility of Batclaws or Climbing Shoes. We had a Two-Face player boast about how Two-Face always survived, it required Endalyon decided to throw the game to kill Two-Face to end his survival streak.

If characters are so hard to hurt, what's a gangster to do? It's simple, we kill the Batman, you must commit to the attack. 

When you want to put a model down, you need to allocate dice into Attack. This is especially relevant if their retaliation can't be taken on the chin. Button Men are the best attack piece you can have to put a model down, but any model can possibly take anyone out. Leave DC blank to fill AC on your stat cards. Whether you can pull that off is determined with a Raise the Plan, where you can have a clear target. Once a model has acted, it's less likely to be attacked because an efficient opponent wants to take out your inactivated models to reduce your ability to harm later in the turn.

So, when you really want to put someone down, commit to the attack. It's that or don't even bother. If they're worth standing over to finish do so but be aware that a Squire can be used to finish the job while your Button Man does other things. So, identify your model that will this theatre and set them to fight, the rest of your models can have their allocation split between Offence and Defence.