The Snake Will Always Bite Back
Agents for a Reclaimed Kingdom Part 5
Welcome to the fifth preview in our series of previews on the Specter Ops hunters and agents. Last week we featured the Hunters of Specter Ops. Specter Ops: The Shadow of Babel is currently available for pre-order in the PlaidHatGames.com store. Watch a game overview video, check out our first Agent preview below, and then pre-order today!
We fight for real happiness, and when the forces of Raxxon resist us, we will cause misery. We fight for our species’ history and its future. We fight for its soul. A.R.K. is aware that there will be countless employees – fools blinded by the corporate veil – who will resist. So be it. There is too much at stake here to protect the purposefully ignorant. We will consider those who side with Raxxon as part of Raxxon itself, and mark our words, Raxxon will burn.
"Remember, a Cobra is a snake and snake is sneak spelled sideways!" --Flint
"The snake will always bite back." -- Jake "The Snake" Roberts
After last week's Hunter previews, it may seem like a lost cause for the Agents for a Reclaimed Kingdom. However, a quick look at the facility shows that a majority of the game is played in the shadows of tight corners. Wise is the hunter who doesn't want to be found, and perhaps wiser is the hunter who does.
At first look Cobra appears to be a liability, the art of being found isn't something particularly desired. On second look, this just might be one of the best defenses we see in the entire game.
(Strategic insert here, selection of the Agent is made once you've seen the Hunter selections. Use this to your advantage.)
Cobra's Ambush is something that, while it can be triggered anywhere on the board, is particularly useful for close quarters. A Hunter who ends their move in the same space as Cobra is stunned, and while that does show the other Hunters your wherabouts it also blocks an immediate attack from the one who sniffed you out. You may think that the other Hunters will now come in for an attack, but use those tight corners to your advantage.
Looking for lanes or pockets that restrict access (especially line of sight) can ensure the only way they can get to you, is to come to you. A smart Hunter will then realize they shouldn't enter your space, but finding nooks that require them to move adjacent in order to attack may still be advantageous. The second part of Ambush allows you to roll a die when a Hunter moves orthogonally adjacent to Cobra, and on a 4+ that unit will be stunned. Those spaces just in the middle of two bends is a perfect place to lay low and wait for them to come to you, potentially stun, and then get the heck out of dodge.
If a Hunter still manages to get through the fray and get off an attack, Cobra's special equipment is a two charge Velocity Blade. The Velocity Blade allows you to reveal the card and give -3 to Hunters' attacks until the start of your next turn.
As I mentioned earlier, selecting your Agent based on the Hunters can be very advantageous. We learned about several of The Beast's special enhancements last week, but we see some of those get negated here. In fact, if there would be any hunter Cobra would want on his trail, it would be The Beast. Where landing on the same space is generally a good thing for The Beast, we see here that it nulls out the benefit, and in fact prevents him from attacking at all. Even being just inside of The Beast's Quadripedal Move will make for a great surprise when he arrives thirsty for blood and you deny the opportunity.
Even though, in Specter Ops, one side is called the Hunter and the other side is hunted, Cobra can make it feel like things work the opposite way.
