After playing a lot of Overwatch recently I decided to try and categorise different Aristos into different roles. This happens a fair bit already, but there seems to be some discussion as to how many roles there are, and what is needed in a team.
After thinking about it for a while, I think that the lower the number of roles the better, given the nature of each Aristo being unique it would be very easy to have 10 or more roles, and I don’t think that really helps anyone.
So, let’s start with the tank role, and what I think it means.
To me, tanks can soak up damage. They are able to force your opponent into a difficult decision; ignore the tank and take damage or otherwise suffer, or attack the tank and potentially spend a lot of resources not achieving very much. Tanks do (or at least, should) have meaningful attacks otherwise they would be just ignored.
So, the following Aristos I have classified as Tanks.
Maximus
8-Ball
Prysm
Kozmo
Final Boss
Some of them are definitely better at soaking damage to others, some do better damage, but all of them are pretty resilient. When it comes to team selection, you can’t go wrong with at least one tank. Their secondary role can help shape the rest of the team, for example, can they control the board as well, or do they have good ranged attacks.
Right, on with more in depth looks.
Maximus
Main role: Tank
Secondary role: Support
Maximus is the hardest Aristo in the game to kill. That’s all you need to know about him initially. He is also fairly slow, though he is able to move in response to other members of your team being attacked. His attacks are pretty unreliable in terms of damage output, so don’t expect him to get many frags.
He is surprisingly good at controlling the board. His high brawn and his sky-high agility means he can move to where he wants with little concern, and any characters with low to average ability themselves are going to find it hard to move away from him, which can make him a nightmare for characters with a minimum range. Taunt can make him even better at controlling high damage targets and prevent them from hurting the rest of his team.
Take him when you want a front line that just won’t die and when you want to scare Aristos who don’t like being up close. Don’t take him in scenarios where you have to move a lot.
8-Ball
Main role: Tank
Secondary role: Scoring
8-Ball can be a huge thorn in your opponents plans. He has a very good agility and brawn, and both of them can trigger displacements which can make him very hard to move away from, and hard to pin down.
His actions are very versatile, giving him the ability to move friendlies and enemies alike. He can increase threat ranges of his own Aristos and ensure that’s a scoring zone is controlled by his team. Like Maximus his damage output is very low, and his actions really benefit from gaining extra dice due to lots of his switches giving him even more displacement.
Take him if you want to be able to manoeuvre and control your own team and your opponent’s, and increase your scoring potential. Don’t take him if there is a lot of dazzle in your opponents team and you have no way to deal with it. If he is dazzled he is quite literally a sad panda.
Prysm
Main role: Tank
Secondary role: Damage
Prysm tanks in a very different way to others. By marking herself at will and using Taunt the enemy is forced to attack her, using any actions they have including contender shots. This can make Prsym very effective at controlling parts of the board, and forcing Aristos who would normally try and do other things like score and move.
Some of her ability to tank comes from her switch which can negate damage as long as the attacker is 5 hexes away or less, so bear in mind the ranges of your opponents attacks, as if someone like Major Lunah or Wild Bill are able to shoot her from further away she is likely to be taken out.
She wants to activate early in the turn to taunt targets, so be aware of this and any ability your opponent has to remove states. Her damage output comes partially from her attacks, but also from her cards, most of which are designed to do damage to targets that are taunted by her or attack her.
Take her if you want to control key targets and parts of the board, don’t take her if your opponent has strong long ranges attacks as they might be able to remove her from the hexadome quickly.
Kozmo
Main role: Tank
Secondary role: Support / Damage / Scorer
I must confess I found categorising Kozmo pretty hard as she does so much. She has a strong defensive stat and slightly above average health, the ability of Kozmo to fire smoke as a switch often means she isn’t being shot at for long which can find force a close quarters engagement.
Her attack has average power but as her targets can often be in smoke the damage output can be higher. This is because she adds an orange die to any target that she attacks who is in smoke. Also as her attack rolls a black die it can help reduce damage that comes back, assuming her target can see her to begin with.
Smoke can be very powerful, and it’s ability to all but shut down some ranged characters can’t be understated, but be aware that you can easily block your own lines if sight the same way.
Kozmo can have bursts of speed that allows her to get to scoring zones that were out if reach, and her cards allow her to have a mixture of tanking for her allies and moving quickly to where is needed, or even moving allies as well. Her cards can also raise her damage potential.
So Kozmo is probably the most versatile tank, depending on what cards you take you can build her as any role. Take her if you want to be able to adapt to any situation, avoid her if you don’t like big Japanese robots.
Final Boss
Main role: Tank
Secondary role: Damage
Final Boss is a tank who is much more able to take damage close up, ideally no further than 2 hexes. He is definitely a tank who forces his opponents to deal with him, as left unchecked he can dazzle and stun opponents and be even harder to remove.
His ranged attack has no minimum range, and does decent damage but is unlikely to take out many targets on it’s own. When I have taken him I have found his ability to slow down targets from range is probably more useful than his damage output.
He wants to go early in a turn and set up a target to be stunned so he can be more resilient to any counter attacks. His cards can give him surprising busts of speedy hay can take targets by surprise.
If he is attacked at longer ranges than 4 hexes he is much more easy to take out, so he wary where any snipers are when using him.
Take him if you want a versatile and resilient brawler, don’t take him if your opponent has lots of powerful long range shooting near him.
And there we are, that’s the Tanks. I’m sure there will be some different points of view regarding how I have categorised the Aristos, so let me know what you think, either here or on Twitter @Ihexadome.
Into The Hexadome 