Character Review: Iceman

 

Bobby Drake, one of the original 5 founding members of the X-Men, is one of the most iconic mutants out there. Now let's see if he's as cool in Crisis Protocol as his name would suggest!

Iceman's stat line is about as average as it gets for a 3 threat, with 4 physical defense and 3 against energy and mystic. His medium movement is complemented by being on a 50mm base, making him somewhat mobile for his threat.

Freezing Blast is Iceman's gainer, at 4 dice with R3, it's not packing the biggest punch, but being energy with a wild slow means he can generate power fairly consistently if he can manage to hit at least 2 models with his beam.

Chill is Iceman's spender, at R3 with 7 dice, energy for 3 power, it's on the inexpensive side for a 3 threat and the stagger trigger is pretty meaningful since Iceman can have an easy time generating power.

Freeze and Fade is Bobby's first superpower. Working as a hit and run that allows him to functionally ignore terrain size for his movement. This lets him move in and out of the action fairly easily, especially with his beam to hopefully slow models that would come after him.

Ice Slide is Iceman's second superpower, when he begins a move action, he can pay 2 power to and move an ally (size 2 or less) within R2 of himself, R2 of their current position. This lets you reposition a model that has already activated back on a point, into cover, or away from the action.

This interacts very nicely with both Freeze and Fade and his gainer since it means that Bobby, provided he has 2 power, can move, use Freeze and Fade with his beam to attack 2 opposing models, generate 2 power, then use Ice Slide when he starts the move action from Freeze and Fade and use the power he gained from the attack to pay for Ice Slide.

Lastly, Iceman has the passive superpower Cold Snap that slows models who end an action near Iceman and damages them if they're already slowed. This works well in conjunction with his beam and stacks up damage surprisingly fast.

Overall, Iceman is a pretty mobile 3 threat with both positioning tools and disruption thanks to his superpower suite. Bobby does suffer from being somewhat fragile with a total of 10 health and no additional defensive superpowers but fits pretty nicely in any X-Men roster.

Thanks for taking the time to read this piece and as always, don't forget to have fun!