Life is full of tough decisions, and here’s one for you now: Do you skip down to today’s Green Lantern preview card, or do you play it honest and read the article straight through until you get to the preview the old-fashioned way? Can you restrain yourself from looking ahead? Have you already looked ahead, and are only now reading the article proper, in which case it’s a non-issue? Do you have what it takes? I guess it’s just a question of willpower . . .

(Warning: Bad Segue Alert!)

Speaking of which, this seems like a great time to introduce one of the Green Lantern expansion’s new mechanics: willpower!

Every Green Lantern fan knows that willpower is the mental energy a Green Lantern focuses through his, her, or its power ring in order to fly through the air or create fantastic energy constructs.

In the Vs. System, willpower works the same way. Some characters have willpower. The more willpower a character has, the more powerful certain plot twists and powers become.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. As usual in a new mechanics previews, here’s an excerpt from the new box topper—that’s the little insert that comes in a booster box and explains the new rules, game terms, and mechanics for an expansion set.

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"In brightest day, in blackest night, *
no evil shall escape my sight!
Let those who worship evil's might,
beware my power . . . Green Lantern's light!"

The Green Lantern expansion adds exciting new powers to the Vs. System. But before you can play, you’ve got to learn the rules.

Willpower

Every member of the Green Lantern Corps has access to one of the most awesome weapons in the galaxy: a power ring. But power alone is not enough—you have to know how to use it.

In the Vs. System, a character who can channel mental energy into powerful abilities has willpower.

Some characters have the keyword “Willpower” in their text boxes, followed by a number. This tells you how much willpower that character has.

Example:         John Stewart reads, “Willpower 3.”

Many powerful effects reference a character’s willpower.

Additional Information on Willpower

—A character can gain or lose willpower.

Example: Green Lantern Ring reads, “Equipped character gets +2 willpower . . . ”

—Unless otherwise noted, a character has 0 (zero) willpower. 

Example: Every character in the Vs. System prior to the Green Lantern expansion has 0 willpower. However, those characters can each gain (or lose) willpower.

—A stunned character always has 0 (zero) willpower.

—Willpower has no built-in rules. It simply acts as a reference marker for powers and modifiers.

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Simple, huh**? Willpower’s just a number. The fun part is all the cool things we can do with that number. There are three basic ways a character’s (or characters’) willpower can be referenced***:

1. Does a character have a certain amount of willpower?

2. How many characters each have a certain amount of willpower?

3. How much willpower does a character have?

1. Does a character have a certain amount of willpower?

This is a check to see if a character qualifies for something. It doesn’t care exactly how much willpower the character has, as long as it’s above a specific amount. An example of this kind of check would be:

“Target character with willpower 3 or greater you control cannot be stunned while attacking this turn.”

It doesn’t care if the character has 3, 4, 5, or more willpower, as long as it has at least 3 willpower. This kind of check can also apply to a group of characters: “Each character with willpower 3 or greater you control cannot be stunned while attacking this turn.”

2. How many characters each have a certain amount of willpower?

Similar to situation #1, this is also a check to see if a character qualifies for something. However, it then counts how many characters qualify in order to generate a new number. An example of this kind of check would be: “Draw a card for each character with willpower 3 or greater you control.”

3. How much willpower does a character have?

This kind of effect generates a number based on the character’s exact willpower. An example would be: “Choose a character you control. Gain endurance equal to that character’s willpower.”

This kind of effect can also generate a number based on the total willpower of a group of characters. The power of Hal Jordan, Reborn (who, by the way, has willpower 6) is an example. “While the total willpower of characters you control is 20 or greater, you cannot lose the game and your opponents cannot win the game.”

Okay, you’ve held out long enough. Here’s today’s preview card:

So what do we have here? Let’s break it down.

For starters, we’ve got an unaffiliated 5-drop with 11 ATK and 7 DEF. That’s a nice ATK value, but his defense is a little wanting. Obviously he’s much better straight up when you have the initiative. If only there were something cool to do with him when you didn’t have the initiative . . .

Light Brigade falls into the first category of the above ways a card will reference willpower. If you have one or more characters with a total willpower 8 or greater, you can exhaust those characters to put Light Brigade directly into play. Thematically, this represents a Green Lantern creating an energy construct—in this case, an army of giant stompy robots. Unfortunately, an energy construct has a short lifespan, and thus is KO’d at the start of the recovery phase.

In game terms, Light Brigade is like a play-from-hand plot twist that gets you a free character for a turn. Plus, it shores up your curve in the event that you don’t draw a “normal” 5-drop character. Keep in mind that Light Brigade is only KO’d at the start of the recovery phase if you put into play using its power. If you recruit it as normal, it will stick around just like any other character.

What are some things you can do with a free one-turn character?

—Use it as a meat shield. Toss it in the way of one of your opponent’s incoming attackers. Who cares if it gets stunned? You were going to lose it anyway. And while Light Brigade takes the heat, one of your other characters will live to fight another day. It’s an even better deal if you use a reinforcement effect on Light Brigade to counteract its lack of a team affiliation and its relatively low DEF.

—Use it to mess with your opponent’s attacks. Wait until your opponent has attacked one of your characters, and then put Light Brigade into play. If your opponent didn’t see it coming, he or she might now have to make a combat trade he wasn’t expecting. Better yet, he or she might not be able to attack through it without using a plot twist or team attack

—Use it as an impromptu attacker. Wait as long as possible before putting Light Brigade into play, which is not so easy, because of its hefty willpower requirement. If your opponent can’t stun it, his or her own team will be vulnerable to an 11 ATK character smashing through during your opponent’s own initiative.

I’m sure you’ll come up with your own tricks too. At the very least, these giant green robots fit right into the Mojo deck.

There are two more things to note about Light Brigade. One, we liked its mechanic so much that we decided to give it a couple of cousins. Of course, they’re each a bit different in application. Two, you may have noticed its version is “Construct.” While the version Construct in and of itself works just like any other version (except Army), there’s something special about it. Tune in for tomorrow’s preview to find out what it is.

Send questions or comments to dmandel@metagame.com.

*There’s been some discussion on the boards as to whether Hal Jordan’s mantra goes “In brightest day, in blackest night,” or “In brightest day, in darkest night.” The truth is, it can go either way. At different times in the history of the DC Comics universe, he’s used both phrases.

**Something we always consider when introducing a new mechanic to the Vs. System is the amount of rules-strain it puts on a player. In the Marvel Knights expansion, we kind of blew everyone’s mind with the hidden area. I mean, that’s not a small mechanic and it requires a player to absorb a lot of new information. With willpower, we’ve tried to go the other way. It’s a mechanic that adheres to one of the fundamental goals of the TCG paradigm: the cards will tell you what to do.

***You might have noticed that we often use a character’s cost as a reference number. There are two main differences between cost and willpower as a referent. First, unlike a character’s recruit cost, willpower can be increased or decreased. It even goes away completely while the character is stunned. Second, while a character that costs 3 resource points always has a cost of 3, we can vary a character’s willpower above or below its recruit cost. A character with cost 3 might have willpower 5.

Tomorrow's card: