Another card revealed by Atomic Mass Games on Twitter – this time Black Widow, but in her Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. guise.

Attacks

With a choice of three attacks, she has some versatility.

Her free attack can reliably generate two power, whether you deal damage or not. Four dice isn’t great, but it’s not useless. Even against 4 physical defense it can still contribute a little damage:

That’s not really reliable enough for cabal power generation to be counted on, but she’s got a 77% chance of getting at least one extra power off the cabal leadership.

She does have an energy attack, and the three power it costs can be easily achieved after an automatic pistol.

Scaling with status conditions is a neat trick, and pushes are great if you can hit that wild. But this character doesn’t feel like she’s all about damage. No: this is what I like about her:

Area attacks are rare. This is a low power attack, but it doesn’t need to deal damage to inflict poison.

Having a reliable way to apply poison to a nearly 7.5 inch diameter bubble is really exciting. It opens up the possibility of some power denial lists that really hurt your power economy. Doing low damage actually works well with that strategy: if you damage an opponent you are giving them power. I can see her playing with Loki or Groot to make superpowers cost more whilst denying power from poison. I’m really looking forward to seeing what I can come up with around this.

Defense

S.H.I.E.L.D has clearly upgraded Natasha’s armour and been putting her through some endurance training. Higher physical and energy defenses than her 2-threat version, and an extra stamina on each side. But her mental fortitude has taken a hit. She still has stealth though, so at a distance she is just as impervious. I don’t think it’ll be happening as often though.

At 2 threat, you would commonly see her grab an extract objective and run to the hills protected by stealth. If the opponent wants to remove that objective, they have to go out of their way to get her.

With Tear Gas and Interrogate, however, this Natasha is much more like to be up in the fray, so stealth is more likely to be an early game protector, rather than a long term plan.

Parting Shot

An interesting power:

Mobility options are always good, especially as this is a way to benefit from Stealth. If a character is attacking at roughly range 2 away, they won’t be able to get two attacks in on her: she will move away to outside of range 3, and stealth kicks in. Nice synergy. The damage is just gravy, and something that will occasionally really protect her – that character with only one stamina left, or has just had Field Dressing played on them…

Interrogate

This is a character defining ability. Any time you have a chance to score extra VPs, you’ve got to sit up and pay attention.

An extra VP per turn can win a game. Three cost is eminently achievable given that her free attack is nearly guaranteed to net her two power.

It will very hard to deny your opponent from getting this off once: she runs in from stealth protection at the end of a round. But a good opponent will then prioritise dazing and KOing her. If you manage to get 2VPs out of this ability in a game you’ll be doing well. The threat of it, though, dictates a lot about how your opponent will play, and like a good spy, you should use that to your advantage.