Some Notes About the Set:

• This set may be titled Batman, but the Justice league got the best pieces.
• There aren’t many bad pieces in this entire set. That’s why this article was so late, it was tough to choose. And truthfully I think any of my top five could have been the best in the set.

Meanwhile back at the Hall of Justice…

• I love the chases in this set. The idea of Super Friends is great. They all are worth playing on your force and there is zero reason not to fill any extra spots on your sideline with them. I never thought I’d see an Apache Chief in Heroclix.
• Including the Phantasm and Super friends is Wizkids way of showing us that they must have access to every DC animated property. While Marvel may rule live action movies, DC is the king of animated movies. There is an incredible amount of material to draw on there for future sets. JLU, Batman, Superman, Green Lantern, Young Justice, all the movies, and maybe even Teen Titans Go?
• They’ve made primes great again! I loved all 4 in this set and 2 made my top figure list.
• It seems way easier to pull good stuff from this set. Chases I believe are averaging one per brick and sometimes come with primes.

Okay! Now on to some…

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

5) FFBTAS104 Poison Ivy (75 Points)– With just Ivy’s dial alone she really isn’t worth 75 points. Average to low combat values. No stealth, outwit, or perplex. She does have a cool trait that could increase her defense to 20, but limited support powers and lacking offense means she just isn’t that great. That all changes when you look at her ability to make FFBTAS104BT Biting Vines. They have flurry, giant reach and 2 damage with a 9 attack. An opponent can easily KO them with an attack, but they will have to waste an action to do that and IVY can put one into play as a free action every turn.  The best part is that while just about every other bystander token in the game comes into play next to the figure generating it, Ivy’s tokens come into play up to 10 squares away from her. The only requirement is that they need hindering terrain, but she doesn’t even need line of sight to that square.

4) BTAS016 Batman Beyond (100 Points)- The hero of many first place sealed teams also has some value in constructed. Stealth and the ability to see through stealth is rare and most figures that can do that cost too many points because of those abilities. Batman Beyond clocks in at 100 points with an excellent first click. He brings things to Batman Family and Gotham City teams that they don’t see very often (IT: Hindering, Flight, Invulnerability, psychic blast). He also has a limited ability to choose extra powers. That comes in handy when he’s damaged because he can chose steal energy and potentially heal himself. His synergy with BTAS048 Bruce Wayne means you should strongly consider running that figure as well.

3) BTAS035 Wonder Woman (75 Points) – I wish I had some secret combo with her, but she made this list just because she has a great all around dial. Good combat values, good powers (invincible on defense), she flies, she has indomitable, and a good combination of offense and defense. She is a steal at 75 points.

2) BTAS001B Clayface (50 Points)- For 50 points you get a hard to KO stealthy outwit figure that just begs your opponent to waste attacks on him. Take him and run him right at your opponent. If luck is with you then you might hit 3 or 4 shape change rolls (50% chance each time) in a match. Your opponent can’t bypass your shape change with outwit or pulse wave, because Clayface is immune to both. If you’ve had any luck with shape change rolls in the match then when your opponent finally does KO Clayface, he’ll instead transform into a blades claws fangs monster with 3 more clicks left to go. The best part about him is that he doesn’t break up your theme team. Any team that needs a stealthy outwit piece now has one. He can be the 5th turtle, part of an Asgardian army, or the newest member of the justice society.

1) BTAS034 Ra’s Al Ghul (75 Points) – This guy is similar to a lot of other characters in the set that have a the Gotham Crime boss trait like BTAS042 The Joker. When you roll a 5 or 6 on leadership with him you get to put someone into play. The difference with him is that his bystanders are better then suited henchmen, you know exactly what dial you are getting, and they don’t give your opponent  any points when KOed. Aside from that you get a strong close combat piece with both the Batman Enemy and Underworld TAs.

The thing the kept him out of my top ten list is his lack of good TAs. League of Assassins doesn’t have enough good pieces to field a team, he doesn’t have the Gotham Underworld keyword, and he doesn’t even get martial artist like Talia and his ninjas do. Who did Talia learn martial arts from?

Don’t forget to run at least one BTAS010 Ninja with him.

TOP TEN PIECES IN Batman: The Animated Series!!:

10) BTAS073E Hawkgirl (30 points)- Hawkgirl unfortunately has a weakness that is too easy for other teams to exploit leaving her with a 15 defense a lot of the time. However, at 30 points she’s cheap enough to just stick her in a corner and make BTAS073BT Average Bird bystanders the entire game. She makes an average of one a turn so it won’t take long for her to make the board look like a Hitchcock movie. They have almost no defense to speak of or offense for that matter, but they are they to irritate your opponent as fast disposable tie up figures. If you have some perplex or empower to spare then their built in flurry might do some good for you, but they are otherwise only able to damage the weakest characters. For a fun combo try giving them Blades/Claws/Fangs with AI047 Tigra or the new Wolverine wanted poster ID.

9) BTAS052 Batgirl, Shadow of the Bat (70 points)- For 70 points you get a dial that starts with prob and has access to perplex (via her +1 ability) and outwit (via her -2 ability). Her KO effect makes her a juicy target for your opponent, but her support powers, stealth, and 7 click dial length won’t make that easy. Her -2 ability also includes a free charge for the possibility of two attacks in a turn, attacking while double tokened,  or for attacking after being carried. 

8) BTAS053B H.A.R.D.A.C. Batman – For 75 points you get a 6 dial with damage reducers on every click, indomitable, and a stop click in the middle. He has shape change, can prob his own attack rolls, and has a limited ability to chose a power every turn. Most turns you will chose outwit or perplex based on who is on your sideline, but charge from BTAS001A Batman or running shot from HQ014 Batman are good choices too. It’s too bad you only can bring along one Batman.

7) BTAS069E Green Lantern – TREKOS006 Lt. Kyle has taught me to love the combination of sidestep and telekinesis. It just works out so well for positioning. For just 5 more points than Lt. Kyle, Green Lantern brings flight, barrier, and enhancement. And as a added bonus if he is pushed to his second click he switches to offensive mode with a combination of running shot and pulse wave.

6) BTAS054 The Joker – Everyone’s big complaint about this guy is that he has almost no defense. On the wrong team that’s true. But, if you play him with several JW003A The Joker Thug, he’ll have a mastermind power which is difficult to bypass and as an added bonus the thugs won’t ruin your theme team. Aside from his non conventional defense, he is a fairly standard Charge and Blades/Claws/Fangs piece, but with sidestep and plasticity thrown in. And if you are in close range with an opposing piece,  he can activate his Christmas present item as a free action which will give a good result 5 out of 6 times. I’ll take those odds. That’s enough to justify his point cost, but he’s also can use both outwit and perplex at up to 9 range!

5) BTAS060 Hawkman & Hawkgirl – For 125 points you get 10 clicks with a stop click in the middle! They also bring excellent attack values that never go below 10 and will likely be a 12 if you aren’t attacking a character with flight. Their damage value is only 3, but they bring some things like outwit and flurry to help when fighting against other characters with damager reducers. Their 3 clicks of hypersonic are great, but even the 5 clicks they have with charge should be more than enough movement when you add in their traited sidestep for 3 squares.

4) BTAS064E Robin – Ignore the 30 point dial. For 20 points he’s the cheapest source of perplex in modern not named Fat Tony. He has stealth and combat reflexes to keep him safe. He also has sidestep so that he can hide behind other characters and then step out into the open when needed.  On top of that, he has a similar trait to FFTMNT2005 April (O’neil). If he is KOed you choose an opposing figure of 30 points or more. If you KO that figure then robin comes back into play. Depending on the game, you might get a free Robin (or two).

3) BTAS067 Wonder Woman – Her opening click features starting Hypersonic Speed, flight, the ability to carry an extra person, invulnerability, and Shape Change. But the best reason to use her is her completely broken special power. It states “LASSO OF TRUTH TO CAPTURE THEM ALL AT ONCE:: FREE: Choose an opposing character within 5 squares and line of fire that has a character adjacent to it. Roll a d6 for that character and each character adjacent to it. [4-6]: give the character you rolled for an action token.” It’s a free action so it’s useable every turn even she took a costed action (like using hypersonic speed) first. In sealed I was able to give an action token to an entire opposing team of 4 characters using this power AS A FREE ACTION!

2) BTAS040 Batman – There is a very simple reason why Batman is one of the best figures in the set. It’s not his dial. Sure at 125 points his dial isn’t bad. It’s has 12 starting attack and it’s 8 clicks long. Perhaps it’s biggest weakness are the low damage values. With so many good Batman dials out there, it’s not to hard to find one that’s comparable or arguably better.

The entire reason to run this figure is to plan a team around maximizing this Batman’s use of the #s001 Batarang item. It allows him to make a ranged attack as a free action with damage minus 1 and ignoring everything except walls on targeting. So he can move his full movement value (or be carried) and still make an attack. The only other character in modern that can do something similar is the extremely popular DW069 Captain America. Batman’s free attack starts at minus 1 damage, but nothing says you can’t bring that value back up via enhancement or perplex. You could easily plan a whole team around someone like EW004 Green Lantern carrying Batman and a small army of support characters. A team like that could start 13 squares away and cripple an opposing primary attacker with a 5 or 6 damage alpha strike.

1) BTAS061 Zatanna – She reminds me a lot of the best supporting character that 2012 had to offer – the 75 point FFCW006 Scarlet Witch. That character featured Telekinesis, Probability Control, and Perplex on the starting click and was extremely popular in the meta. Zatanna features all of those same powers for the same price. But, she also has psychic blast and can generate two BTAS061BT Bat with enhancement as free actions. With all those support powers she can super charge any ranged primary attacker. But, her best trick is her surprising offense. The Scarlet Witch was pretty useless on offense, but Zatanna can use her perplex, prob control, and enhancement bats on herself to Psychic Blast someone for up to five penetrating damage! After you pull off a move like that, you won’t ever see her as only a support figure ever again. And that’s why she is the best character in the set.