Doctor Voodoo – First impressions

This is my first, first impressions post, and we’re going to be taking a look at Doctor Voodoo!

We’ve just had his card revealed and he looks really strong. With six health either side, a medium move and size two, he’s your average character in terms of basic stats for four threat. His defences are 2 Physical, 2 energy and 4 Mystic – Which is only just below average as they are. When we look at his Superpowers though, that’s when things start to get really interesting. 

The spirit of Brother Daniel is an Innate superpower that Doctor Voodoo has. He begins the game with a Brother Daniel token, and whilst he has the token, Voodoo gains a couple of bonuses. First of all, he gains two dice to all of his defence rolls, giving him a tanky 4/4/6. He also gains two dice when rolling any dodge rolls.

The second part of this Innate superpower is similar to Doctor Strange’s Shield of Seraphim superpower. Whenever Doctor Voodoo rolls dice, after the effect is rolled, this character gains 1 power if any failures (Skulls) were rolled. This can quickly add up, as if Doctor Voodoo is targeted by any Mystic attacks, he should be getting a skull on every other roll, as well as whenever he rolls a skull whilst attacking or interacting with objectives.

Spiritual strength is a 3 cost throw, that allows Doctor Voodoo to throw a terrain feature or character within range 2 small. If he currently has his Brother Daniel token – He can use this power to throw up to a size 3 terrain feature instead, which is a nice little bonus.

The scariest looking superpower on his card is Possession. For X power, he can choose an enemy character with threat value X or less within 3. That character drops ALL objective tokens it is holding, and the Brother Daniel token is moved onto it. While that character has the Brother Daniel token, it can not interact with, hold or contest objectives. 

The more you read this superpower, the better it seems to get. Not only can the target character not hold or pick up any objective tokens, they also can’t even contest them. Targeting a single enemy model holding their home Gamma shelter with this could be huge, swinging 3 points in favor of the Doctor Voodoo player. 

If a character is holding the Kree power core – They just drop it. And the worst part is, they can’t shake the Brother Daniel token. The only way to get rid of it is to KO Doctor Voodoo, or for him to choose to remove it from you. With the additional power he gains from rolling Skulls, Doctor Voodoo can quickly target characters with this in the early game, rendering them useless as objective carriers or contesters. Shutting down a model like Quicksilver or Black Cat could be huge, and force your opponent to have to completely rethink their plan.

Recall spirit is a reactive superpower. This allows him to instantly pull the Brother Daniel token back to himself from anywhere on the table, buffing up his Defenses ready for an attack or simply letting him give it back out to a different character. During the power phase, he can also choose to recall the token for free as part of the Spirit of Brother Daniel superpower. If a character is holding the Voodoo token and is dazed or KO’d, the token also returns to Brother Voodoo.

With Recall spirit and Possession, if Voodoo manages to get to 8 power, he can possess one three threat character, recall the token, and then possess another three threat character. This could make multiple targets drop Hammers or Cubes, and if they’ve already activated, they might not get chance to pick them up again.

His last Superpowers are Flight and Immunity Hex and Incinerate. With how common Hex and Incinerate have become, these are both really handy immunities to have. It also helps to cement the strength of his defences whilst he has his own Brother Daniel token. The flight superpower is the icing on the cake, allowing him to move around more freely and ignore terrain when doing so. 

With all these Superpowers, Doctor Voodoo is a great character already. Both of his attacks are nothing to raise your nose at, and can both be quite nasty. His basic attack, Spirit Venom, is a range three five dice Mystic attack that costs 0 power. Voodoo gains power equal to the damage dealt, and Saps power from the target character for each wild rolled, before damage is dealt. 

His spender attack is quite impressive. For 3 power, the Staff of Legba is a range two attack that throws seven dice. The nasty thing here is the trigger for rolling wilds. For each wild rolled, the target character loses one power. The target character then suffers one damage for each wild, and does not gain power from this damage. 

This means that regardless of the number of blocks rolled, the target character could still suffer two or three damage that they can’t avoid. Range two means that Doctor Voodoo will have to be quite close to do this attack, but it can also cause some serious damage. 

Overall Doctor Voodoo looks seriously strong. The Spirit of Brother Daniel is possibly one of the coolest tokens we’ve had so far, and will really mess with the plans of anyone trying to run away with a single high scoring objective. The first affiliation that comes to mind for me outside of Convocation is Criminal Syndicate. He brings Mystic damage that they don’t have very much access too, and by essentially nullifying an opponents characters ability to score, this doubles down on Kingpins leadership ability.

As always, please leave a thumbs up if you enjoyed reading, or a thumbs down if you didn’t! Please feel free to comment any thoughts you have on Doctor Voodoo, or anything that I’ve missed or got wrong! Follow the blog if you want to see more future posts