Hello there Deesciples!
I have finally returned after a long hiatus due to a very long laundry list of excuses, but I am back and readier than ever to blab about things that very few people in the world care about.
But you care, and that is all that matters to me, baby bird.
Now, BECAUSE I care so much, I wanted to make sure you have the chance to buy this amazing model from a father figure that won’t get killed in a back ally by the most fun dumpster in the world by mob hitman, Bearded Dragon Games. Make sure you buy Daredevil, and the biggest PoS in Marvel, Bullseye from them and use the code PCME10 to get a discount that would make even Matt Murdock see again. Just make sure one of them doesn’t kill your girlfriend for the 30th time when you are not looking.
Much like Thanos, we knew it was inevitable that AMG was going to change the character cards of some of the most beloved Marvel characters that have been suffering lately due to a variety of reasons. I was desperately craving some changes to my own favorite characters so that they could crawl out of the comic book and punch others in the face straight into my heart once again.
Anyone that knows me knows that I love two things. I have been a huge fan of Daredevil since I saw the first season of the show on Netflix literally a million years ago. I thought the gritty, strangely spiritual, and grounded in reality aspect of the character really just resonated with me. This lead to me eventually picking up some of his trade paperbacks and it has never been the same since. Also, I really love tiny, little puppy toe beans. They are just so precious.
I told you two things.
When I started to play MCP he had already come out which made grabbing his box a forlorn conclusion. I was all in on Web Warriors since I love the Spider-Man mythos AND my favorite character was in that affiliation too! Talk about a dream come true. Who doesn’t love the idea of Spidey and Hornhead working together to thwart the machinations of people who want to yell at banks or J-walk.
Unfortunately, both of the characters had some trouble when they were released and time was not kind to them with the slow influence of power creep pushing them further and further behind. So, now that we are end of the intro to a cooking recipe blog post, we can bring up the fact that he got a brand new shiny card!
Heck, it’s even pretty good!
AMG changed a few things from his old card. Hornhead’s physical defense went up to 4, Man Without Fear gained a small move towards the aggressor, Devil’s Deliverance was made much more useable, and Baton Hook now ignores stealth and cover.
Also, I guess he gained a leadership, but that’s whatever I guess.
I am just kidding, the fact that he got a leadership for a much underappreciated affiliation is remarkable in its own right. I believe that every time a leader is “released” the game opens up much more than if it was just a single other model. Leaderships open up entire new playstyles that can give your already used models different roles entirely. Wolverine in Daredevil’s leadership is going to want to play different than under Dr. Strange’s leadership.
So, lets talk about how Hornhead is going to get the job done.
Strike: The Bonkening
This strike is in fact a strike that resembles someone dispensing justice with their fist into someone’s cranial vault. Matty is hitting with a pretty average builder that has an after damage stun trigger. While it is less optimal than a pre-damage stun, this trigger does represent a signifigant threat to any model that enjoys power……so almost all of them. It is especially effective against models that generate more than a single power in the power phase since their powersets are usually adapted to expect that amount of power in a turn. It can be debilitating if you take that power generation away.
Who would have thought space Viking gods would fear the runt from Hell’s Kitchen.
Baton Hook
This attack represents that while Mr. Murdock may not have functioning eyes, he is very well trained in the ability to yeet thing’s into people’s cranial vaults. Due to the fact that everything Daredevil sees is a world on fire, he can easily avoid model’s cover and hit people that think they are hiding by laying down in the open street. Unless you are a little devil man standing next to a SUV.
The push, or pull if you want to look at it like that, is especially powerful if you are putting Daredevil up against a man-shaped model that is only size 2 due to the fact that he could yeet his baton, yank someone off of a point, and then use his long move to occupy the space that the previous doofus was standing on. It’s not rocket surgery, but gosh darn if it is not effective. If that is all Daredevil has to do in a turn for you to score a point, that sounds like a win to me.
To make sure it is sorta clear, at the time of writing this, the errata remains that changes the Baton Hook push trigger to only work on Wilds, but this change does not appear to apply to this specifically changed Daredevil card. Once AMG comes out and specifies this changes I will edit this part out of the article.
Devil’s Deliverance
This attack is the one that got the biggest change from his previous card. The base strength went up to 6 and increases by 1 with every single non-sleepy enemy that is in the AOE range. This makes it much easier to use since you no longer need to have the exact perfect moment in order to get a dice pool that is strong enough to start breaking people’s cranial vaults. The actual best part about the attack is not even the damage though. If you can wait until the end of a turn with an inactivated Hornhead, you can easily long move onto a point, use the attack, and push everyone away small. The fact that the push is also sizeless just adds to the fun. No one stops the Devil from Hell’s Kitchen. If you do this on a central gamma point or just an area where someone does not want to be disrupted, you are gonna loss so many facebook friends.
It feels good when it works. Real good.
New Leadership: Marvel Knights
So, the thing we have all been waiting for this entire review. My boy, Mr. Little Red Devil Boi, got…….wall crawler. That’s right lady and gentleman. Daredevil can swing up onto a……
No, for real though he got a pretty ok leadership. The new leadership gives you an attack reroll of a number of dice equal to the amount of enemy models within range 2. You can only do this once per turn so make sure you know if you are going to be making more than one attack during your activation or if you have attacks coming out of sequence. An interesting aspect of this leadership is that dazed enemy models do also contribute to the number of dice that you get to reroll. This means that this leadership wants you to get up close and personal and re-enact certain scenes from shows. I think this does a very great job of creating the narrative theme of the street-level defenders wanting to brawl with their opponents and give them a taste of New York City street justice. You show them that no one messes with the METS!
I have a single negative about this leadership. I think that this leadership is tricky due to the fact that it could also be a downside. The advantage of the rerolls needs to be weighed against the risk that putting your model within range 2 of a bunch of people who want to punch you in the eyeballs a bunch of times is going to bring up. It could be perfectly ok if you manage to land in the right spot and deliver some truly inspiring butt-kickings. If you don’t manage to get any work done though…..Well, you are gonna have a real bad time.
I think that models with higher health pools or obnoxiously good defense powers are going to really benefit from this leadership the most since it mitigates some of the risk. Hurray, another leadership that helps Hulk be better.
Man Without Fear/ The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen
The “mottos” of Daredevil, I guess for lack of a better term, encapsulate what Matt Murdock is all about. In Women Without Fear, Elektra comments that no matter how much training, stealth, and Kung Fu that Matt Murdock knows, it always comes down to his family history of being a boxer. This is perfectly encapsulated by both of these powers.
Man Without Fear is when someone dares to strike Daredevil and forgets to put him down. Matty gets to NOW make a small advance towards the attacking model and then attempt to cave their face in with his fist as long as he ends his advance within range 2. This synergies well with the leadership as all of this happens on your opponent’s turn. This means that counter attack powers work very well in this leadership. You get to use you reroll on their turn and keep your own reroll for when you go on the offensive on your following turn.
That’s the kinda synergy that Dr. D likes.
The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen is when Matt has gone full punch-drunk and he is just swinging for the fences. You get to make an extra strike action for 2 power but if you roll a skull in the attack, you are gonna take a single damage no matter how many skulls you rolled. This is actually a shockingly good ability since it allows you another chance for a dice spike with a pretty reasonable risk of only a single damage. I think this works especially well with Radar Sense, which I will go over in shortly. I think that if you are on the injured side I would always try and do this if it would net me a point unless it would actually KO Matty.
My only tip for this is make sure you remember which power is on which side since it switches once Matt hits the mat, it’s a homonym and boxing pun Taylor, for the first time and comes back from a daze.
Radar Sense
Technically speaking, this is actually the only super-power that Matt Murdock received with his un-prescribed radioactive-material eye wash. This power represents that Matt can hear the heartbeat of a mouse all the way in Hoboken from Grand Central Station. He can even single out that specific mouse if he focuses on it, and lets not forget that Hoboken has a WHOLE lot of mice in it. In combination with the kung-fu skills that he got from a very angry blind man, Murdock is able to, in theory, avoid anything since he can tell when someone is going to attack him just by their heartbeat and breathing patterns.
In game this means that he gets rangeless martial artist. In combination with 4 Phys defense dice, this could mean actually hitting Hornhead with an attack can be deceptively difficult. Results are going to vary since this is a dice game, but you will have games where Daredevil is going to be the most insanely defensive model in the game. Just make sure you remember that it does not apply to brain punches. Beware the Psylocke!
Also, He Has Wall-Crawler
Read the title, do I need to explain it to you? It’s a blind guy that is swinging around buildings on a modified mobility cane. More like he is putting the mob into the mobility cane…..you know….because he beats up mafia…..you will get it when you are older Taylor.
Conclusions and Ratings
Daredevil went from possibly the worst character in the game to a desperately needed leader for a much maligned affiliation at the time of writing. I love to see my boy not loss to the 10 count, that was a boxing reference Taylor, and get back up to ask for more. My internal model rating system that helps me think a model is amazing and not just good is if that model is going to get splashed into affiliations that don’t have his name. I sadly do not believe you will see Mr. Hornhead Esq. in much other than Defenders and Web Warriors.
I think that his power set is very thematic, but there is only so much a blind boxer ninja can do. The current meta rewards big bois and Daredevil does not do much to stop them other than maybe not getting hit as hard when they swing their big, meaty green fists at him. Sad, but that is the state of the game as of the time of writing.
Daredevil is my favorite comic book hero on the entire Earf. So, this rating could be very biased. Because of this I rate him with a very high score.
Theme Score
5/5 Emotionally distant and actually dead father figures
Competitive Score
3/5 Hulk’s busted and continuing to remained unfixed 2-Cost Size 4 Throws
Keep it popping guys and don’t forget to tip your waiters on the way out. You might see me out there representing the most guilt-ravaged, internally angry, sorta-blind, catholic super hero out there soon!