What's a game of Batman like? What's it most similar to? How long does a match last? Is it fun playing as the villains too?
Sorry for the question bomb, I might be getting some as a gift to my best man if it's as good as it seems. (weird gift I know but fuck it, I'm leaning into being a huge dork)
It's sort of a hybrid of a few games. This is how you make your crew pre-game.
You'll start by choosing your Crew and Leader, which feels a bit like Malifaux, Warmachine, Guildball. Then you'll fill out your crew based on reputation points and funding cost. Typical game is 350 rep and 1500 funding. Rep is generally a mark of how good their base stats/traits are, while funding is more about the equipment they bring. Leftover rep is wasted, but leftover funding can be uses to purchase equipment for your henchment. Each crew has specific equipment available to them, though there is a lot of crossover.
Speaking of Henchmen, your crew can have 1 Leader, 1 Sidekick, up to 2 Free Agents, and a variable number of henchmen, though you can only have 12 models total on the table. An average crew will have 7-8 models, but some lists(Joker and Penguin for example) are specifically good at just running a bunch of henchmen. Some lists prefer to focus on 5-6 elite models, like Green Arrow, Batman, or Suicide Squad teams. Anything below 5 seems to be a bad idea due to how scenarios work, i.e. Batman/Nightwing/Swamp Thing might be super good, but theycan only project force so far.
You'll also pick 3 objectives when you make your team, which is what you actually need to score to win. Games are played over 6 rounds, with most VPs winning. Objectives include Titan Dispensers, Loot, Safes, Joker Canisters, Riddler Puzzles, Ammo Crates Bat Signal. You can also score points for knocking out or killing enemies, but it's not always the best way. Each scenario may also have special ways to score points.
You allocate tokens to your people at the start of the round(Attack, Defense, Movement, and Special), then alternate activations with your opponent. Objectives score at the end of each round. To attack someone, I'd assign my attack dice to eligible targets, than roll them all. Have to match or exceed target's defense to hit. You use d6 for everything. Then target can spend defense counters to try and block by rolling against MY attack stat. Any hits remaining then have to be rolled for damage with a collateral die. For damage, you roll against your own strength. So a random joker clown might only have two attack, which makes him easy to block, and need 5s to damage, and only do one stun per damage, while someone like Deathstroke is 5 attack, 3s for damage, can reroll misses, and does 2 blood per damage.
You can allocate a number of tokens equal to your Willpower stat. Most henchment are going to be 4-5 range. Most Leaders and the elite free agents will be 7-8. You also have an endurance stat, which is how much damage you can take. Again, henchmen can usually only take 4-5 damage, while most leaders and free agents will be closer to 8, with a few brawlers as high as 10-11. Think Swamp Thing, Clayface, Bane.
Most henchment are also only going to cost you 15-25 rep, while Deathstroke is like 135. Most of the Batman variants are around 100-120 as well. Free Agents range from 40-135, though it's kind of a bell curve with most being in the 70ish range.
Terrain matters a lot in this game, which is the biggest change from the Warmachine and Guildball tables I'm used to. There are a lot of acrobatic characters, and people with batclaws, who need some buildings/terrain to function. Firearms are also extremely deadly, so you need a fair amount of scatter terrain to affect Line of Sight. This is where some have compared it to necromunda. Most objectives do have to start on the street level, but there's nothing stopping Catwoman from grabbing some loot and then hiding on a roof to score it uncontested.
First round is typically running and trying to get position for round 2, though ranged characters and people who deploy differently may start shooting/scoring turn 1. After that, it's a brawl.
Our games have been lasting about 3 hours, but we're still learning everything. I know tournaments are 2 hour games, so that's the standard we're working towards.
As for villains, I certainly find them fun. There's far more of them than there are "good" teams. That's basically just Batman Crew, Law Forces Crew(which has a lot of crossover with Batman), and Green Arrow/Flash(same). I guess Teen Titans and Suicide Squad too.
I think long term, you have to be willing to play some of the generic NPC-style characters to really have fun with this. Like Batman and Nightwing are going to cost you close to 200 rep, which means you have 150 left to spend on another 4-6 models. You could take two free agents and have a 4 person crew but you'll probably lose most of the time like that. Instead, you take Alfred, Gotham Swat cop 1, Quick Response Team 2, and Female Cop 1.
Also, some crews just flat out don't have as many options, for those that have to play a perfectly themed list. There are like 20 damn Joker/Harley henchman, but Mr. Freeze only has 5, and Poison Ivy only has 4.
The team I played with last night was Poison Ivy, Victor Zasz, Slipknot, 3 Arkham Asylum inmates(they're Zasz's buddies), and 4 Blackgate Prisoners vs Riddler, Quelle, Catman, Catwoman, and 4-5 riddler bots. The arkham and blackgate prisoners are generics that will work for most villain gangs, so with those alone, I'm a purchase away from playing a few villain crews if I wanted.
I mentioned Batman variants as well, so I should mention that a lot of the famous characters actually have multiple sculpts, and each sculpt has it's own rules. Ben Affleck Batman, for example, is far tankier than TAS Batman, but less mobile. You typically can only take one of a particular named character, i.e. Bruce Wayne, but you could have multiple Robins on one team, i.e. Damien Wayne, Jason Todd, and Tim Drake, but I don't think you could have Nightwing(Dick Grayson) and Robin(Dick Grayson) on the same team.
Overall, I know this game has been somewhat popular in Spain/Europe for a few years, but it's starting to grow now in NA as well. Between the amazing terrain and iconic characters, it's been pretty easy to get new players, including a few people who never played a minis game before. It's also relatively cheap. Like 30 bucks for a 150ish point starter for most crews. Most single named models are 20 bucks, with henchmen packs costing 30ish for the 4-packs, and 20ish for 2-packs.
Alright, that was a long post, so I'll leave it there. If you have more questions, let me know.
