The Hood, the Bad and the Ugly

So yesterday we had a huge bunch of reveals! We got photos of a bunch of tactics cards, some photos of the new Hulk buster next to other models and the Panel to Play for The Hood! So today I’m going to be doing a dive into his Character Cards!

The Hood, aka Parker Robbins was a troubled child. With a mother who needed constant Medical treatment, Parker turned to a life of crime to steal money to try and get her better care. Parker and his cousin broke into a warehouse, looking for valuable materials, where they were attacked by a Demon. Parker shot the Demon, and thinking he had killed it, he took its red Hood and boots for himself. They gave him new powers, and it was too late before he realised he had also taken the Daemon with him…

The Hood is the third model we’ve seen with the transform ability, after Ant-Man and The Wasp. However rather than having a sideways character card with both profiles crammed onto it, the Hood has two separate character cards for his different forms. We have Hood (Normal) and Hood (Possessed) which represents the Daemon taking over. Luckily, both character cards are identical on either side, or else it would get really confusing trying to remember all of their rules. 

Rather than including photos of both sides of their cards, I’ve just included both of the character cards healthy sides. I’ll essentially break the article down into the first half, Hood (Normal) and the second part which will be Hood (Possessed)

So on both character cards, the Hood has a slightly less than average stat line for a three threat character. He has five health, is size two with a medium move, and 2/2/3 for his defences. Without any bonuses, this means the Hood could go down very quickly, especially if he has the Incinerate special condition or is being de buffed by Bitter Rivals.

Hood (Normal)

Attacks

So the first attack on the Hoods (Normal) side is Hex Shot. This is a range three four dice Mystic attack, with the rapid fire trigger on a Hit roll. For each time the attack is resolved, the Hood gains one power. This is slightly better than other similar attacks, like Mystique’s Physical Pistol attack, purely because of the fact that Hex Shot deals Mystic damage.

His spender attack is Dark Lightning. This attack is also range three and Mystic, but throws six dice and costs three power. It automatically dishes out the Shock condition to the target, and has a new trigger we haven’t seen before – Arc. For each Wild that is rolled, you can choose a number of other enemy characters within range three of the target and deal one damage to them. This is a pretty good way to get through some chip damage, and if the Hood manages to get it off twice in one turn, it could do a huge amount of damage across the enemy team.

Superpowers

Hood (Normal) has one of every type of superpower on his card. His first superpower is a Active power, called Black arts. For three power, he can heal an allied character within three for up to three health, with the downside that the chosen character also gains the Bleed condition. This won’t always be a downside though. Quite a few characters now have Immunity (Bleed), and Blade will be licking his lips as all his friends gain Bleed tokens. This superpower is basically Medpack on a stick, with the slight downside and extra power to use, but it can be used once every turn. Notably though, the Hood can’t use this to heal himself.

His second superpower, Invisibility Cloak is Reactive. For two power, The Hood (Normal) can use his Mystic defence when defending or dodging. This doesn’t seem that great, as it’s only one extra dice, but when you read that it counts blanks as defences – It becomes significantly better, and it makes him reasonably consistent when defending or dodging. The Hood (Normal) doesn’t have great ways to generate power, so might find himself in situations where he doesn’t have enough to use this superpower, but when he does it’s a strong boost. The fact that this Superpower is called the Invisibility Cloak, AMG seem to have missed the opportunity to give this character the Stealth innate Superpower.

His innate superpower is Possessed by Nisanti. Whenever the Hood (Normal) would be dealt damage by an enemy effect, he may transform into Hood (Possessed). However, if the damage would daze him, before being dazed he transforms into Hood (Possessed) and is then transformed.

Hood (Possessed)

This Hood is very different to the one we have just looked at. The Hood (Possessed) has two different attacks, and three different superpowers.

Attacks

The first attack for the Hood (Possessed) is Razor Talons. This is a range two six dice physical attack, with zero cost. The Hood (Possessed) gains damage for each damage dealt and dishes out Bleed to the target on the trigger of a Wild. However, if after the attack is resolved, if the target of the attack is Dazed or KO’d then the Hood (Possessed) immediately transforms back into the Hood (Normal). This could end up as a huge downside – Your opponent could reroll successful defence dice, to then daze or KO their own character and force you to transform back into the Hood (Normal).

His second attack is Empowered Dark Lightning – A souped up version of the attack that The Hood (Normal) has. This attack costs four power, and is a Mystic attack that throws eight dice and gives the target the Shock condition. It also has a Wild Arc trigger, except for each Wild another enemy character within three of the target suffers two damage, rather than one This could quickly deal out serious amount of damage spread across multiple targets. A spikey dice roll with three or more Wilds with this attack could be absolutely devastating, and an eight dice Mystic attack is brutal as is. After the attack is resolved, the Hood (Possessed) immediately transforms back into the Hood (Normal)

Superpowers

His first superpower is one we’ve seen a few times before – Charge. For two power and an Action, the character can immediately makes a move action, followed by an attack action. This could catch your opponent off guard, suddenly setting up an Empowered Dark Lightning with plenty of Arc targets.

Demonic resilience does huge things for The Hood (Possessed) durability. An innate superpower, whenever this character suffers damage it reduces it by two, to a minimum of one. This means that he is still as vulnerable to small chip damage, but in order to do more than one damage in one go, you’ll need to be dealing four damage. This sort of makes up for his less than average defences, but he can still go down pretty quickly with a bad roll.

Mystic Vulnerability is another innate superpower, although its more of a super weakness. When defending against Mystic attacks, the Hood (Possessed) doesn’t add additional dice do its defence rolls as a result of Crits. On top of that, if the Hood (Possessed) is damaged by a Mystic attack, after the attack is resolved, it transforms back into the Hood (Normal). If the Hood (Possessed) would be dazed by a Mystic attack, it instead transforms into the Hood (Normal) and is then dazed.

Overall the Hood is an interesting character, but could quickly go down to attacks if he doesn’t have the power to use the Invisibility Cloak or if he is in his Possessed form. I think he is going to be a bit of a glass cannon, with some of the new tactics cards really boosting the offensive output of the Arc trigger. There will be some interesting plays with him alongside Blade, maybe being able to set up a train of power and healing gain for Blade from his allies bleeding. Stealth and Flight would of both been nice and thematic powers for the Hood to have, but we’ll see how he plays as is.

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