Out of the Shadows…is a series of articles highlighting fun, helpful cards that aren’t getting a lot of attention. They may or may not be meta-worthy, but are definitely worth looking at for casual play.
Warbiker: Dakkagunz
Warbiker: Dakkagunz is a character from the Orks Waaagh! (ORK) team pack. There are three versions of this shield character in the team pack. This version, along with one other, each cost 3 energy, while the third version costs 4 energy.
Warbiker: Dakkagunz’s ability is a while active ability. While Warbiker is active, prevent the first point of damage to your Sidekick character dice from each source.
This means that your opponent will need at least two points of damage from a single source in order to KO your Sidekick character dice.
Why is this special?
In theory, the more Sidekick character dice you have in the field, the fewer dice you have in your bag. Therefore, most of the time, it’s in your best interest as a player to field as many sidekicks as possible. This keeps your bag thin and ensures that your key character and action dice cycle through your bag quickly. They’re also handy to block attacks from your opponent without sacrificing your other, perhaps more important, characters.
In the usual course of gameplay, Sidekick character dice are easy targets for your opponent to KO, as they have both an attack value and a defense value of 1. With our Warbiker in the field, there are some key effects from which your sidekicks are at least partially protected, such as:
Range*: Since the first point of damage is prevented by our Warbiker’s ability, your opponent would need a character with minimum Range 2 in order to KO your sidekick.
Attune*: As each instance of Attune does just one point of damage, there would need to be a Pseudodragon: Paragon Familiar in the mix, along with an Attune character, to get your Sidekick KO’d.
Some Global Abilities: Your opponent can usually use Global Abilities (like those on Magic Missile or Unstable Canister) to ping out your sidekicks – not so with our Warbiker hanging around.
*You can find a full list and description of the keyword abilities HERE, if you want to refresh yourself on how these mechanics work.
Your opponent will have to work harder and spend more resources to remove your Sidekick character dice from the field, when our buddy Warbiker is around.
What else can our Warbiker do?
The other thing that Warbiker will protect are your characters with the Ally keyword. Ally characters typically support other characters (think Pepper Potts to Iron Man, or Jane Foster to Thor) and provide additional bonuses to their partners. Ally characters are considered to be Sidekicks in the field and therefore are subject to our Warbiker’s protection.
One note of caution when using our Warbiker. This ability could be considered a double-edged sword. You’ll notice that Warbiker’s ability does not specify damage from your opponent, or an opposing source; it simply prevents the first point of damage from any source. So if part of your strategy is to ping out your own Sidekick character dice, you may want to re-think putting our Warbiker on your team.
Have you played our Warbiker before? How has he affected your gameplay? We’d love to hear from you, let us know your thoughts or questions in the comments.
-jbouwme