The B.P.R.D. Go A'Huntin'
Greatfrito Pits Hellboy's B.P.R.D. Against a Zombie Swarm

As I've yet to see any news on how the B.P.R.D. play other than just "Hellbaby looks awesome!" or "Liz Suzorz!" I figured I'd post a bit about a game I played yesterday, mostly to try out Minions (I had just printed up a sheet on card-stock to use as proxies). I took the B.P.R.D., my friend took a zombie horde. We played on the Crumbling Mausoleum map - which was probably his poorest choice all game.

We're treating all of the B.P.R.D. troops to have the Guardian type (at the very least), until Wizkids gives us something better.

Team:

B.P.R.D. (Guardians)
Captain Ben Daimio (65), Liz Sherman (55), Johann Kraus (50; +2 PT), and Hellbaby (30).

Zombies!
2x R Hardgat Zombie (20 points each), Zombie Cop (25), 2x R Zombie Lawyer (25 points each), R Sorority Zombie (35), E Shambling Zombie (25), E Hardhat Zombie (25).


The game took a few swings between "one-sided" and "pretty close" before it was finally over. Hellbaby proved all of the rumors about him, leaping across most of the map to plop down a few guardian minions early on. Daimio was only a few steps behind him, though, with his good speed as well. The Zombie team got to a few victims early in, and made a few zombie minions out of them. The zombie minions proved useful early on for grabbing other victims, and making more zombies, but they took too many and didn't get any Zombies blooded, which probably cost them the game.

Once things started to "heat up" it became apparent that the minions just weren't going to cut it with Liz on the board. She incinerated a few of them before taking a couple clicks of damage. Eventually the Zombies came after her, basing her with a Shambling Zombie, then a Sorority Zombie, and lastly a Zombie Lawyer. There was too much time between each of these though, and with Hellbaby as a bodyguard Liz just had to knock them down to their hourglass dials, wait for them to sit and get up, and then Smoulder them nearly to death. The Zombie Lawyer almost got her a few times, once he was left by himself, but her good defense kept her up and healthy, and once his toughness dropped for any reason, the Zombie Lawyer was screwed.

Almost all of the rest of the Zombies went after Daimio, Johann, and the guardian minions (out of 6 victims rescued, 3 were turned into minions; Liz didn't seem to -need- to be blooded). I had set up a pair of gates on the zombie side of the courtyard, so I used the guardian minions (only two were alive at this point - zombie minions had swarmed the other one) to hold them closed (he couldn't move the minions off like he could victims, so the portals stayed closed). Daimio set up a few paces away from one door, so that he could get a clean shot when the minion went down. Johann stayed around next to him.

When the Zombies broke through, they did so with force. One guardian minion broke away and hid next to Johann. The Zombie Cop on that door took a chance and Randomfired at Daimio. He missed, unfortunately for the Zombies, and was blown mostly away with one burst from Daimio's supa'-gun. A R Hardhat Zombie broke down the other door, and killed the second guardian minion on his next turn. Daimio was swarmed with a few injured Zombies, but with Johann for backup (and a few pick-up shots on zombies that lost Stamina) Daimio did pretty well.

Eventually Liz and Hellbaby dealt with their part of the mess and came over to help. Right about then the second Zombie Lawyer bit a big chunk out of Daimio - for the first time all game I was worried that a character might go down. Once Liz and Hellbaby came over, the game was all but won. With Zombies pinned to Daimio, trying desperately to hit him and take him down, Liz was shooting fish in a barrel.

The last Zombie to fall was the E Hardhat Zombie, because with the low activations (2) he was lost in the back for a while.


Overall, the B.P.R.D. do pretty well - they dominate within my limited number of pieces.

Liz is... useful against small, weak monsters (minions, yes?), but less so against other opponents. Her range is nice, but she could have used more ranged damage. Add to this her lack of a damage-reducer (something everyone else but Abe has) and she's just weaker.

Johann really is -just- a support piece. He was never hit, so I didn't see him get down to his counterattack clicks, but his reroll let Daimio just mop up. The extra two Plot Twists seem like a big boost as well. I'd have to try him out more to see, but I think Johann is a pretty good investment if you want Plot Twists. He might work well in a team that needs to grab a lot of victims.

Ben Daimio was the star of this game, dealing the most damage by far. His damage of 3 at range is just deadly - top half of the B.P.R.D. at the least. Add to this his Stamina and his Blooded state on the first clicks, and you've got a piece that does what it does pretty dang well. Fast, too, so he can grab victims fairly easily.

Hellbaby earned his reputation here. He could bound over the map, grabbing victims left and right, creating Minions too, for us. He was the leader for number of rescues - by a ton. For 30 points, I can't believe he wouldn't be worth it in any guardian group.

PART II

In part because the fight seemed so one-sided in the first match, I connived the same player into a second game, with the same armies and Plot Twists, in the Haunted House map instead.

By the end of the match the B.P.R.D. had rescued 8 victims, and made 6 guardian minions (still keeping them as guardians for this one, to keep it in line with the last). Of the guardians, there were only ever 3 on the map at once, and they would get massacred as soon as any zombies began to approach.

The Zombies had slain 4 victims, and created 2 zombie minions. These minions didn't run into Liz, but they were killed by Ben Daimio and guardian minions anyways.

In the much tighter regions of this map, the playability of the B.P.R.D. was significantly challenged. Objects (two doors and some hindering terrain) broke the long central hallway into three parts... until the Zombies overran the doors. Again the guardian minions were used only to A.) kill Zombie minions, or B.) hold doors closed.

Ben Daimio sat himself in the thick of things, with Johann at his back. The two held up pretty well at first - Daimio's high defense and Stamina kept him from going down. His high attack and re-rolls courtesy of Johann let him hit whatever was put in front of him. It took nearly 4 whole zombies, and a massive amount of turns, before Daimio went down. The zombie player was a little better prepared this time, and made sure to keep his horde together. The thin hallway kept Daimio from being surrounded, but it didn't protect him from being consistently based. In the end Daimio was killed, by one of the Lawyers.

Johann essentially just sat behind Daimio the whole match. He grabbed a few guardian minions at the start, but given Daimio's superior staying power he was put up front instead of Johann. Johann made it to the end of the match, but had the Zombie Cop not quit, I'm not sure that he wouldn't have been killed eventually.

Liz was almost useless. The corridors were too tight, and she never took any damage. Stuck on her first click, she couldn't even snipe zombies that came toward her. Near the end of the game she got into the fray, and singlehandedly baked a Sorority Zombie into submission (Smolder is killer against zombies, it seems). She lived to the end, and could have easily taken the zombie cop out by herself.

Hellbaby did pretty well, but nowhere near as well as he had on the outdoor map. Trapped by the walls like everyone else, he ran fast to grab victims that were out of reach for the other characters. He held back for a while as Daimio did the dirty work, but eventually joined the fray. He did some good there, before being taken out by the Sorority Zombie and the Cop. Hellbaby actually went down pretty quickly once he was surrounded, but the fact that he rescued 5 victims on his own should speak volumes about his playability.

In the end, same outcome, very different game getting there. This time the B.P.R.D. took heavy losses (counting minions, they lost 8 soldiers), and won primarily due to luck. A larger collection with better Zombie options could have taken them on easily.

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