What is The Batman Miniatures Game?
Bruce "The Edgelord" Wayne
The Batman Miniatures Game (BMG) is a skirmish tabletop game centered around the DC Universe's brooding, edgy, tragic superhero vigilante 'Batman'. The game is set in Gotham City or any other landscapes that fit the Batverse whether that's Bludhaven, The Bat Cave, some twisted theme park operating as the Joker's latest base of operations and anything in-between. As a player you have the option of playing as any of your favorite Batverse/DC hero or villain and his or her associated 'goons'. The game starts with you and your opponents crew and plays around the interaction between them. One thing I will say is that this game plays very cinematic, more than most tabletop games. Knocking out a gun-wielding thug and then zipping up to the rooftop of a nearby building feels like Batman. Each activation of a character or model plays just like you'd imagine, or at least pretty close to it. Let's talk about a few key points and I'll post some useful links at the end of this post to help you get started.
I'm assuming you here for one or more reasons. The first being that you're a tabletop gamer who's also a fan of Batman or the DCU. Secondly, maybe you're just a big comic book fan and you think the models look cool. Third, you've been coerced by your friends to play with little hand-painted figurines on a 3D board-game-like tabletop. Whatever your reasoning might be is good enough to at least check things out.
The Bane-Train
Let's chat about crews for a moment. One of my favorite things about Batman is not just the Dark knight himself, but he has an amazing rogues gallery. All your favorite villains are here including everyone's favorite drug addict Bane. Whether your heart is as cold as Mr. Freeze or you see yourself as a clown much like The Joker, or maybe you can relate to the family man cop Jim Gordon – there's a crew for you. Now I won't dive into the inner-workings of every crew in the game, at least not yet. I would say the first thing you should consider is what will you have the most fun playing. I always recommend playing something that matches your personality either aesthetically or play-style. That could also be as simple as picking your favorite character and building a crew around him/her, or maybe your the type to say "I just want to beat up other models effectively," whatever that motivation is explore the model range and read through the rules to help you decide.
Named after the nickname you gave yourself as a 7 year old to sound cool — Nightwing
Some of you may be overwhelmed and have no idea where to begin. Though this is outlined in the book, you'll need models with specific ranks to fill out your crew. They are: Leaders, Sidekicks, Free Agents and Henchmen. These ranks can be complex, but for the most part you'll just need a Leader and from there with some constraints you can build outward with henchmen and maybe a sidekick or maybe even a team of characters like The Bat-Family. The catalyst of crew building revolves around resources and you have two to focus on. First we have reputation, this represents the core value of the model. For example Batman may be upwards of 125 reputation, whereas a measly guard might be 21 reputation. In a friendly game you can set your crew limits to be whatever you want, but the most common form of play is 350 Reputation and $1500 funding (Tournament and Batmatch Standard). For example, in a crew allowing for 350 reputation Batman will take up 125 of that and a guard 21 more, leaving the crew 204 remaining reputation for you to fill out. Next we have funding, this represents equipment that is either purchased after building a crew or an associated cost for a model. For instance, you might be eyeing another guard to stick with Batman, and he's got a sweet assault rifle to pepper some makeup wearing thugs. now the guard himself is 26 reputation, but he also will cost you $600 in funding because those guns aren't cheap and maybe after hiring him into the crew you want to make sure he's got an extra clip so that's another $200 tacked on, leaving you with 178 rep and $700 funding left. Thought this is just one example I think you get the gist.
Oh boy, Joker and his freaks sure are excited to see that Hot Topic is having another sale!
This has been a brief insight to the game. Obviously there is a lot more to cover, but I wanted to just touch on a few things that might interest you enough to look deeper. Feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions or need some guidance, you can also find me the Arkham Rejects Discord chat daily. Here are some helpful links to scratch your Bat itch, cheers.
The official Website with free downloadable rules and more – https://www.knightmodels.com/en/
The BMG Discord Chat, for all your questions, theory-crafting and BS'ing – https://discord.gg/2hRsbCs
Podcasts, search for the following – The GCPD, Little Gotham, The Boy Wonders and Titandose.
The Iceberg Lounge, a collective of articles and blogs – https://iceberg-lounge.com/author/icebergloungebmg/
Solitaire	Uncategorized	Leave a comment March 7, 2019 April 8, 2019 4 Minutes
At First Glance: Bronze Tiger
Me-wow!
Hey everyone, today we bring you the latest installment of the Kung-Fu Panda Series. In this particular film, a young Ben Turner becomes a karate-kid wannabe, fresh from his local furry fetish meetup group.
In all seriousness, I'm glad we're finally seeing this character in BMG. This isn't the design I was hoping for, but I've had him on my wish-list for some time and I'll take what I can get. Let's take a closer look at this martial master that has a real knack for the Tiger fighting style.
First off, he's a free agent who works with all of your bad-guy crews and rivals Brave and the Bold. You may have also noticed with the Teams PDF being updated he can also be included in Suicide Squad, which is a great addition to a team that needs more options, and if you're a comic book geek like myself you would have been outraged if Knight had somehow overshot that affiliation. Tiger comes in at 85 rep and no cost to your funding, putting him in a comparable free agent level to someone like King Shark who we've discussed in the past. The first thing you'll notice is his stat-line, and wow is he solid. For 85 points he has a great set of stats that couple incredibly well with his traits. Ben is attack 5 with strength 3+, not only that, but due to Close Combat Master, he's re-rolling his failed hits, all of which are putting out double stun from his Reinforced Gloves.
As a side note: re-rolls = reliability = success
Anyway, if that wasn't enough for a great start to combat, he also has Martial Expert that allows him to crit on a roll of a 4, 5 or 6 on the collateral instead of the normal 6 roll that non-experts deal normally. This means he should crit 50% of the time, which is fantastic. But Wait! There's More! Also our kung-fu-cat friend here has Offensive Defense, which allows him to use his defense counters as attack counters during his activation. Let's do some math here. In a perfect world, Turner here is close enough to walk into combat with an enemy model without having to use any movement counters. Assuming he's going for broke, he's loaded up with 5 counters in attack and 2 in defense. That's 7 re-rollable attacks at strength 3+. That's potentially 15 stun damage with the improved crit chance from Martial Expert. That's an insane amount of output for an 85 rep model, and if we compare him to someone like Shark who's a high output glass cannon, this guy is a high output model that is defense 5. Let that sink in for a moment. Attack 5, defense 5, strength 3+, re-rolling hits, and 50% to crit, and the ability to exceed his attack counter threshold by dumping remaining counters in defense as attacks. What…
The fun doesn't stop there, and one could easily argue that with just those abilities and stats, 85 rep may be a little low for him, or maybe he is just at the cusp of balance; however, he keeps going. He's also a Martial Artist, so you can't even attempt to drop his defense by outnumbering him, and if he finds himself in a crappy situation where he needs to D-up, he has the option to knock you out while protecting himself with Counter Attack. I actually don't think you'll need to use Counter Attack with him, just because he's naturally resilient at Defense 5 and Martial Artist, but it's a nice tool to have. Turner also has The Professional trait which allows him to score additional VP's when he removes a Leader, Sidekick and/or Free Agent from the game. This is awesome, but paired with his final ability it pushes him over the edge for sheer point for point value. His final trait is Take Down, something you may be familiar with if you've looked at/played Red Hood. This is great for many reasons; the first being that if you're someone who plays bad-guy crews, you have very few, and in some case, no options to take a model with Arrest/Cruel/Takedown in your crew. All of these abilities are incredibly valuable. With him you now have the ability to remove models from the game without having to spend activations trying to finish off a threat unreliably via coup de grace. The second reason is that assuming another model knocks out a Leader, Sidekick and/or Free Agent, Tiger can literally walk up and for one special counter remove that model and still gain the benefits from The Professional.
I think he fits amazingly in the game, he's not an insanely expensive melee beater. In fact I would say he's under-costed for what he does. His biggest weakness is speed, and at movement 3 he's not suffering all that much. He gives bad-guy crews access to removal that they don't get to see often without outright stacking blood dealing weapons. I would even go as far to say that this is the Free agent you want in a Bane crew, and because he doesn't cost any funding it allows for a lot of equipment and guns to be purchased during creation. I love King Shark, and back before shark and before standard started to become more popular my go-to was Zsasz, and now we have Bronze Tiger. If his sculpt/design looked a little less like a mascot for a Chuckie Cheese Dojo, I probably would have died from over-stimulation.
What do you think of this kitty-cat criminal? Where do you see him fitting into your crews?
Solitaire	Model Reviews	Leave a comment May 19, 2019 May 19, 2019 4 Minutes
Adepticon 2019 Recap Pt. 2
Long time no see Bat-Family. Sorry for the silence on my end, life has been extra busy these past few weeks and I've just finished (well mostly finished) recovering from eye surgery. The surgery had rendered me incapable of looking at a computer/phone screen, in addition I've had to use this past week to catch up on some of my obligations. Anyway, I've meant to put this post together ages ago, but better late than never right? Let's get into Jason's analysis of Adepticon 2019 for the BMG tournament.
Let's revisit Jason's lists that he built as a sort of "all-comers" list for both. Also stating that the idea was to deal with "smaller elite" crews. Let's take a look.
Poison Ivy (Big Ivy) – modified pheromones
Harley Quinn (Gotham City Sirens)
Mutated plant 1
Carnivorous Plant
Stealth Op – Mutant Alterations
Dreadnought Op – Mutant Alterations, Mutation Serum
Prisoner 1
Mutated Plant 3 – Titanic Mutation, Corrosive Blood
Dreadnought Op – Mutant Alterations, Mutation Serum, Rare Nth Medallion
Jason's thoughts on his list and his games
The main difference between the two lists is the lists composition – list 1 with Tet and more plants compared to list 2 which had Scarecrow and Pipe Prisoner. I'm really trying to prevent my opponent from getting to his objectives with the plants and the hard to hit guys (Adaptable from the Serum) and of course Mind Control. None of my opponents attempted to hit Stealth Op at Defense 5, so he was great at holding my objectives. Dreadnought was more in the forefront, still trying to score my other objective, but also able to kill a model when needed (ironically he had trouble putting down Cooki's Pipe Prisoner)
My idea was to have Ivy and Tet on the hunt to control and hand out fire makers to models they cross paths with.Tet killed 5 models in total, burning High Security, and Icy in one game. The next game he killed Cash, QRT2 ,and Arkham Guard 3. Harley was used more as a Support piece. Disarray, Follow Me! (the veteran models could move that counter to help deal more damage if needed) and her guns were used to scare my opponent. With harley you either commit to her or avoid her. Although it's pretty unanimous throughout the community, she's a great model with lots of impact in a single game. Not many other models can run up side of the table to go beat Lincoln March to death with a baseball bat.
I want to talk about Scarecrow and Ivy, and how good they are. I'd say together they are significantly stronger than if you were to look at them as individual pieces.
Scarecrow allows Ivy, or any other Mind Control user, to control higher willpower models with slightly more ease. He can also get a ping from Ivy's roots. Charm is a good rule, and makes it tough to deal him in melee; however, there are still a lot of ways to put him down. Overall Scarecrow can easily die if you don't act fast and cagey with him. Keep in mind that Persuasion can also help with positioning adding more control to his playstyle, it will help by giving him more breathing room, specifically forcing a model to activate, that may not want to activate. I used List 2 with him in it versus Ben and his BatB, also against Kevin's Court.
I noticed in the games that his basic movement of 5" made a difference when catching models to spray as well as running to safety.
There's not a whole lot to say about Ivy that we don't already know. Against Kevin he passed the willpower tests 2 or 3 times, which was bad luck on my part since the models were at willpower 3 and 4 during those activations. I found myself constantly moving her up fast turn one. Then my opponent would rush me down, but unless they had a way around her Defense of 5, I'd just play cagey. I used Mind Control and Plants to back me up and take off some of the pressure.
Tet went on a killing spree, and as I mentioned before he had some key casualties. Controlling a model with Ivy allowed me to drop the model's counters and the Tet could spray a nearby model catching 2-3 models easily, and with the loss of counters it was tough for my opponents to purge the fire markers off.
The plants were there simply to contest. I had about 2 seed markers near each objective, and placing the Caustic Plant in a good spot to shoot. Mutated Plant 3 is a steal with the Disruptor at 14 rep, so I included him to support my crew.
My main goal was to play fast on turn one, getting to my objectives and playing very cagey. Tet was the MVP but Kabuto and Pipe Prisoner were also doing a lot of work. Dreadnought did a great job, but he's not going to be taking down the bat anytime soon. He really benefited from Harley consistently backing him up.
Overall, both lists were fast. It 100% came down what my opponent had in his list to help decide if I would run list 1 or 2.
Solitaire	Tournament Coverage	Leave a comment May 3, 2019 May 3, 2019 4 Minutes
Adepticon 2019: The Cooki Connection
Hey Everyone, part 2 of Jason's Adepticon write up is coming soon, but I wanted to provide you all with something a little special. I had the chance to pick Aaron "Cooki" Cook's brain about Adepticon after taking home first place. Without further adieu I present to you the Omaha Onlsaught, The Midwest Mayhem — Aaron "Cooki" Cook
I've been miniature gaming since I was about 10-11 years old, so about 16 years now (currently 27) I've played a ton of games from any Clix series, any GW game, warmachine/hordes, malifaux, etc… I haven't won many major events but have placed/won a decent amount of smaller events. I don't consider myself a "power gamer" because most of the time I just try and make things I like work. I'm notorious around the Midwest for using sub-par stuff and doing well with it. Batman is probably the "hardest" I've gamed in a while and even then it's only about half of the time.
How long have you been playing Batman; moreover, how long have you been playing in BMG specific tournaments?
I've been playing Batman for around 2 years. Been going to Batman events since I've started. The Des Moines guys and us (Omaha) have hosted a few events for BMG.
What were your thoughts going into Adepticon from a player/strategic standpoint? Tell me why you chose your lists and what you aimed to accomplish with them if anything specific. What were you hoping to see or not hoping to see at Adepticon from a strategic standpoint? (IE: weaknesses/strengths)
Last year I placed second and Karl from Canada placed first. We both used basically identical lists. How the rounds and VPs went, we dodged each other and were both undefeated. So this year I knew I had to step up my game, Omaha thinks Freeze and Owls are the top two crews in the game currently after Society nerfs (which now has changed because of Joker's bikes and that sweet DKR box, but that's another discussion). So my buddy was taking Owls for sure, so I could have borrowed another friends Owl crew or just run Freeze. I went with Freeze because I like using big badass free agents a lot. That being said I knew I was afraid of Owls, Penguin, and Militia probably the most. So I built both of my lists to be able to feel comfortable enough to handle either in any scenario. I knew most of the time I'm dropping The Batman Who Laughs list anyways. The Enchantress was just to list-chicken some people. I dropped the Batman Who Laughs list 3 of 4 games.
Give me a brief rundown of how you felt about the games you played in specifically, and
what were your thoughts on your fellow players as a whole?
I got to play against completely new opponents for this tournament, which is a nice change.
First round I played against Jason Thompson in Secure the area. He dropped Ivy, Harley, Tet, Kabuto, Dreadnought Op, and 3 plants and I dropped my The Batman Who Laughs list. I picked Ice Field, Change of Plans, and Vandalism. I probably should have picked something else besides change of plans. He picked 2 patrols and Ivy's strategy. I knew going into this match that it was going to be cagey and a very low VP scoring game because Freeze plays defense very well and Ivy's plants are annoying. He made some very clutch Ice Flash rolls on Tet and he was tearing up my flank of High Security and double shovel guys. The game changed in my favor when I tempted Ivy into mind controlling High Security and a shovel with good counters on them, he took the bait and I failed both of my willpower rolls but then managed to take down Ivy with Freeze and Batman Who Laughs. It came down to my shovel guy surviving Dreadnought Op last turn to contest his Medical Supplies, which pushed it to a minor win for me. Very close game and a very cool and chill opponent in Jason Thompson. I got in a total of 3 pick up games with Jason over the Adepticon weekend.
Second game was against one of the Canhammer guys, Andrew Atkins. The scenario was looting and I went with the Batman Who Laughs/Freeze list and he dropped an Arkham Asylum Joker, Rebirth Harley, Borgon, Rasta Clown, Hobo, Master of Ceremonies, Pipe Clown, and Punker list. I went with double Fast Advance and Andrew picked Joker's strategy, and Change of Plans. I knew going into this match up I needed a bunch of VPs because I was way behind the top three on VPs scored after the first round. Playing against Joker with only five rounds I needed to jump on objectives quick and out-last him, which is why the double Fast Advance was picked. I think Andrew's biggest flaw, to me, was that it seemed like he didn't have a game-plan throughout the game. At one point of the game he threw Joker's explosive weapon at The Batman Who Laughs and did damage, I told him to use luck and fish for a knockdown. He didn't realize ranged attacks can knock down large/huge guys. He got the crit and proceeded to chop The Batman Who Laughs in two with Master of Ceremonies, but Andrew had taken massive causalities and couldn't come back. That game ended in a major victory for me. Andrew was a easy going guy, I enjoyed the game.
Game three was against Matt from Minnesota. We were playing Asphalt Jungle. He only had one list and it was the Penguin bat-box with a Scope on Tanner. I was about to drop the The Batman Who Laughs list again and then changed my mind because the Enchantress list was designed to fight crews more like the penguin bat-box (IE: some scary guns and lots of low powered henchman). I was afraid of tanner just 1-2 rounding The Batman Who Laughs before he got stuck in the mob of henchmen so that's why I went with the Enchantress list. Matt is a fairly new player, I believe he said this was his 5th game and he had never played against Enchantress nor Freeze, so I knew it was going to be brutal for him. He deployed Tanner on a far flank with decent line of sight but then I counter deployed High Security with Bulletproof Vest/Grapple Gun within 12" and out of line of sight to threaten him right away. Tanner was my biggest concern from the start. He pulled first and shot my Whistle-Shovel and put 6 blood on him, then he used a sewer to go on top of a building near my deployment zone. I put my sewers all on top of buildings for the sole purpose of knowing that I could out-fight Penguin, so if he wanted to use sewers then I could out score him as well. I saved Enchantress for going last and zipped up the field to mind control Lark. Second round of the game is where it got brutal, I knew I had a good chance to pull first and with Tanner out of the game for this turn (sewer placements) I positioned myself for a good round of double sprays. Between Enchantress and two sprays his crew fell apart quick. We only got to round 5. Matt took the loss well and this is a situation where a second list designed to fight more of the top tier free agents and more games under his belt could change everything.
So going into the final round I was in fourth place. The top three guys were running VP farming type lists, so the only chance of me winning the tournament was for the top table to pull a draw and me to win. So knowing this I just needed a 5 point lead and hope for the best. My opponent was another guy from Canada, Will Paul. I was looking at his crew the entire tournament and was a bit afraid to play against it. I don't have much experience against Riddler bots and hoped for a decent scenario against it as well (which two of the four scenarios that I would want to play against him in were already played). He was using Modern Age Riddler as the Mechanic Riddler which I didn't know until we sat down and discussed lists, once he told me that I was a bit more at ease because I was thinking he could use regular objectives, drop riddles, and clues. His list was just the bot-spam clue and riddle farm with Ratcatcher. We were playing skirmish, a decent scenario to fight the bots against. I knew the bots don't really want to fight and I need to get on them right away. So double Fast Advance was the choice, needing 4 strategy points to use two fast advances I needed to drop The Batman Who Laughs list. I set up super aggressively and was looking to match his points along the way and hope that I could make him run away (kill 70% of his crew). He set up his bots along his entire deployment but then clustered Riddler, Bodyguard Bot, and two other bots with the riddle dropping equipment in threat range of my two sprays and The Batman Who Laughs. To me this was his biggest mistake of the game. I pulled first and used freeze to inspire, ice flash, and spray 5 guys. Then my second activation was Coldy with the same 5-man spray. I didn't care if I was wounding on 5's because of the bot trait/Light Armor. I was just putting on a bunch of early damage that can only be healed by Riddler. It got crazy fast with High Security/The Batman Who Laughs and both shovels getting into it by turn 2. The mistake I made that game was forgetting he used Riddler's strategy on one of my shovel guys and forgetting about it until he mentioned it in the recount phase, not a huge mistake but something to remember. After the first three rounds he didn't have much left and I was up 1-2 points. At the end of round three I counted up rep and he made his run away check and failed it. So that pushed me to a major win due to bonus points. Will Paul was a great opponent and would play against him any time.
What are your plans for Batman moving forward?
I told myself after Adepticon to tone down my lists a little and I'm probably going back into Bane or Central City. I picked up a bunch of scatter terrain at Adepticon and need to start demo-ing around my area and build the community here.
What advice could you give to other players that are either interested in competitive play or interested in improving their play?
My biggest advise for players is to really start talking about things you don't know how to play against/have troubles against and figure them out. Even in friendly games my buddies and I will talk to each other and figure out what the best course of action is at any state of the game. It helps with knowing our own crew better but more importantly knowing what the enemy wants/plans to do.
How do you think BMG could be improved? Or what changes would affect the game's quality for the better?
I think Knight should tap into their community a bit more and get some more feedback. In all fairness though Knight has been doing a pretty good job with the game more recently.
I would like to say that I enjoyed the Batman tournament at Adepticon. There has been talk about how terrain was terrible and there was a pairing issue round 2, but all in all it was worth going to still. I even stated that at first glance the tables didn't look amazing but they played fine, maybe besides 1-2 of them. The pairing issue was a bit frustrating but to be honest I think if I hadn't said anything, people probably wouldn't have really noticed/cared. I just love the game and want to play, that's really the only thing I care about.
Aaron "Cooki" Cook
Solitaire	Tournament Coverage	Leave a comment April 7, 2019 April 8, 2019 8 Minutes
Hey everyone, I linked up with my buddy Jason Thompson who participated in the Batman Tournament at Adepticon this year and he was cool enough to share some info with us. I would have loved to attend myself, but being in California I can really only afford to make it out that way once a year for Tournament purposes, and for 2019 I'll be using that time to make it out to Renegade. Let's see what Jason had to show us from the tournament.
Jason came in 4th with his Ivy crew, stating that it "was a 2-list event with 28 players". Though Jason had mentioned to me that a good portion of the players were newer to the game, 4th in a tournament of this size is a significant victory, and for that I'm clapping my hand on my chest right now #SelfClap. Awesome job Jason! He was also kind enough to provide us with a pie chart of the represented crews at Adepticon; in addition we also have every list, but we'll dive into the top 4.
As you can see above, Brave and the Bold was the most represented at the tournament. With Penguin, Court of Owls and Bane tied up for the next most represented crews. You'll also notice from the chart that there a few crews not represented at Adepticon. Those crews are: Militia, Suicide Squad, Society, Bat-Family and The Amazons. Let's take a look at the top 4 that placed at the Tournament.
1st Place: Aaron (Cookie) Cook – Mr. Freeze
The Batman Who Laughs
Icy – Cool Generator
Snowy 5 – Med-Pack
Coldy
High Security Henchman – Grapple Gun, Improvised Armor
Prisoner 01
High Security Henchman – Grapple Gun, Bulletproof Vest
2nd Place: Dan Sammons – Court of Owls
Lincoln March – Talon Serum Infusion
Ephraim Newhouse – Camo Vest, Genetic Alteration, Rare Nth Medallion
O'Malley's Grandfather – Camo Vest
O'Malley's Son
Robin – Genetic Alteration
Strix – Genetic Alteration, Grapple Gun
Ephraim Newhouse – Camo Vest, Genetic Alteration, Rare Nth Medallion, Grapple Gun
Strix – Genetic Alteration
3rd Place: Karl Turbide – Penguin
Penguin with 'Duck' Upgrade
Killer Croc (Arkham Asylum/Disco Croc)
Ratcatcher
Lark – Improvised Armor, Rare Nth Medallion, Whistle
Pavillon A – Grapple Gun, Laser Sight, Improvised Armor, Backpack
Penguin Thug 1 – Radio, Improvised Armor
Rocket Launcher Penguin
Emperor Penguin
The Drowned
Lark – Improvised Armor, Rare Nth Medallion
Pavillon A
Penguin Thug 2
4th Place: Jason Thompson – Gotham City Sirens
Poison Ivy and Plants (Big Ivy) – Modified Pheromones
Tune in for Part 2 where Jason will give us his thoughts on the tournament, his thoughts on his lists and his experience in the various games he played. Thank you Jason! Everyone can catch him over in the Arkham Rejects discord under the name 'Captain Blue!'
At First Glance: Batwoman
Everyone's favorite crime-fighting, wig-wearing, lesbian red-head vigilante
Where do we begin with Kate Kane? She's one tough cookie with daddy issues and she's rocking the mantle of her rich emo cousin Bruce. If you're a comic book fan you've seen that she's been integral in the latest detective comics run featuring the current bat-family. Well let's dive in and see what her 2nd edition counterpart has to offer.
Kate is a Leader or Sidekick for Brave and the Bold, and if you noticed there was some slight updates made for teams that includes Batwoman in Bat-Family. She's coming in at 111 rep and no cost to your funding. Her stat-line is solid, not great for her cost, but solid nonetheless. Stat-line wise she's exactly the same as she was in 1st edition with an additional willpower.
Batwoman has her same old weapon profiles with the R. Controlled Batarangs and the Shock Gloves. The real changes come in the form of her special rules and the fact that she is now a Leader/Sidekick hybrid instead of just a Sidekick.
Let's see what she's gained and lost in the updated model release.
Gained: Lost:
Air Combat Technique
Military Teamwork
Batcape
Losing Technique is rough. It is a strong ability that can completely render a model useless if it is affected by the paralyze effect; however, Kate gains a lot as you can see above. Air Combat is easily the most exciting of the bunch, but Interrogation is interesting as well. What's nice about Air Combat is it is very easy to ensure combat bonuses on the turns that Kate's Batclaw is active; zipping into combat with a Batclaw/Grapple Gun is often something you'll have seen by various Batman models, Robins, equipped High security Henchmans and Borgons (not to mention the various other models and combinations). My point is that this is something familiar, but Batwoman is gaining a huge advantage by entering combat with her Batclaw since she'll be +1 to hit and +1 to damage rolls. The great part is she effectively gains Martial Expert. The reason this is important is that Kate's gloves have CRT: Stunned which gives Batwoman a lesser Technique in that it prevents the affected model from spending counters of any kind (it does not award -2 to defense though). There is a direct trade-off, yes Batwoman no longer has the reliability of technique; however, it is now supplemented that her crit effect on her gloves are much more likely to activate. Now Air Combat can also be activated by leaping down, and since you can only use her Batclaw every other round, she can still benefit from Air Combat by essentially jumping down and putting her hands on another model. This is why I believe that Knight decided to also give her the Batcape rule, preventing her from taking fall damage by trying to active Air Combat through a leap down movement (if the distance down is significant). Interrogation is another new one for her; the rule is a little wordy, but as far as I understand it is that if she is able to successfully grab or push an enemy model — she or another friendly model may move up to 4″ or reallocate 2 action counters. I see this being more beneficial for friendly models since Batwoman can try and move a friendly model out of harms way, or move them into an objective by beating someone up despite the location of her and said friendly model. For example, Kate successfully pushes High Security Henchman off of a roof, and on the other side of the board, Arkham guard moves 4″ into the player's medical supplies effectively scoring it at the end of the round. It could also be used to pull a model or herself away from a lamppost, out of range of a gun etc… I really think this is a great rule, it's just going to require some finesse and positioning. I could also see this being a way of moving her or a friendly's counters around to either help with attacking, or to save someone by dumping more counters into defense, moving it into movement for dodging, moving unused counters into special to recover more effectively at the end of the round etc… Military Teamwork is another solid rule, but because Kate is going to be zipping around beating models up, it's really only going to come into play when she makes her way into a situation where she's saving another model or attempting to outnumber an enemy model.
Overall I think that Batwoman is solid, her main drawback is her cost, she's expensive, but if you compare her to someone like AA Batman I think she's much better and cheaper. I would say you probably won't be running her with any of the really expensive Batman models or other Brave and Bold costly pieces. I think she does well in Bat-Family since she can Arrest and will be dealing stun damage anyway, so paired with someone like Damian who will gain the Boy Wonder trait, Damian could knock someone out and she could easily remove that model, especially with Criminology preventing Runaway, but she really pairs well with any high stun list which is the majority of the Brave and Bold/Bat-Family options anyway. She's going to want to run around and pick people off since she'll be pretty quick with her Batclaw. She'll definitely want to zip into combat with enemy models camping objectives especially if she has back up to make use of Military Teamwork, but that will be more of a mid to late game scenario. Try to take advantage of height with her. Simply standing on a van and dropping down to punch someone can activate Air Combat, or dropping down from a building if you're trying to keep her safe. She's pretty survivable at Defense 4 and Endurance 7, and the icing on top is her Bat-Armor MK1. Just be careful when throwing her into a mob, since she does not have Martial Artist and guns can tear her apart if she's not making use of Stealth.
Other things to note would be that Night Vision pairs well with the fact that her Batarangs are R. Controlled, making it so you can throw them from around a corner or weave them through obstacles. Searcher is always nice to have, in fact anything that removes strategy points or removes an enemy strategy is huge. I would also go as far to say that models that have an impact on the pre-game are always an option to consider and are generally useful for that reason alone. In addition to all that I just mentioned, Kate also has access to her Officer Training equipment which gives her the Follow Me! rule, something worth taking if you have the extra rep and funding.
Overall I think the new Batwoman is pretty awesome. What do you all think? Is she good? Bad? Will there be a Birds of Prey team coming? Does the carpet match the drapes? You tell me!