Turbo Man
Real Name: Turbo Man
Team: Robot Masters
Range: 6
Points: 70
Keywords: Robot, Speedster, Vehicle, Robot Masters

7 11 18 3

7 10 17 3

7 10 17 3

7 10 16 3

8 9 16 2

8 9 16 2

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

Weak to Noise Crush: When Turbo Man takes damage from a Special Power called "Noise Crush", he takes one additional click of damage. "AERO" ignores the Robot Masters team ability.
Changing Forms: At the beginning of your turn, you may choose if Turbo Man is in Robot Form or Vehicle Form. Robot Form can use Perplex, but only on other characters. Vehicle Form can use Improved Movement: Ignores Hindering Terrain.
Burning Rubber: If Turbo Man is in Robot Form, he can use Sidestep, moving three squares instead of two. If Turbo Man is in Vehicle Form, Passengers: 1, modify his speed by +3, and he can use RAM. Turbo Man does not take damage from RAM.
Scorch Wheel: BURN: Turbo Man can use Energy Explosion, ignoring Hindering Terrain for targeting purposes. Place a Scorch Marker on each square of Hindering Terrain between Turbo Man and his target. Squares with a Scorch Marker are considered Clear Terrain.
Repurposed From Dr. Wily's Car: If Turbo Man is in Robot Form, he can use Super Senses. If Turbo Man is in Vehicle Form, he can use Invulnerability and must use Battle Fury.
Systems Disrupted: The first time this power appears, STOP. Turbo Man is now in Robot Form and cannot change Forms (Non-Optional).

Closing out Mega Man 7's Robot Masters, here's Turbo Man!

Turbo Man is surprisingly cool-looking, all things considered. He's one of the few robots Dr. Wily actually built, but... Dr. Wily being Dr. Wily, instead of building a robot from scratch, he reconfigured his old car into a robot. So it's no small miracle that Turbo Man is awesome at all.

Key to Turbo Man is his ability to switch between Robot Form and Vehicle Form, so yeah, he is Special Power loaded. The Special Powers switch what they do depending on which form you want him in. If you want to burn the field up with a nimble shooter, you'll need Robot Form. If you want a durable Taxi that can dish out some melee pain, you'll need Vehicle Form.

Robot Form grants him access to Scorch Wheel, a burning attack that rolls through and destroys Hindering Terrain. This can open up a lot of mobility and shooting options for your team, and can make Stealth-heavy opponents quiver in their sneaky boots. He Sidesteps a bit wider than the power normally grants, giving him a solid movement swing, and Super Senses keep him hard to hit.

Vehicle Form is all about speed and durability. Vehicle Form cranks his speed up and allows him to carry a Passenger as well. He trades his Super Senses for Invulnerability and Battle Fury, removing Scorch Wheel from the equation, but swapping in RAM, from which he'll take no damage.

His transformation ability is unstable, though, so if he takes too much damage, especially from Noise Crush, he'll be unable to do it anymore until he recovers. To that end, I tossed in a little Regeneration even if it's not entirely game-accurate. He's a bit of a soft target at this point though, so you'll want to keep him out of harm's way.

EDIT LOG: Made some modifications to Turbo Man to give him inherent abilities for either Robot or Vehicle Form.

Treble

Points: 15

Treble Boost: At the beginning of the game, choose a character to equip Treble to and place Treble next to, but not on, its character card. Place Four Treble Boost tokens on the character card. Give the equipped character a free action to remove a Treble Boost token from its card to place Treble on the character card. When Treble is on the card, the equipped character can use , 6 Range , and Energy Shield/Deflection. Remove Treble from the card at the beginning of your next turn. When the equipped character runs out of Treble Boost tokens, Treble Boost can no longer be used. When a character equipped with Treble is KOd, points for both the character and Treble are scored.

You'd think that with as menacing a beast as Treble is, that he'd have some offensive capability of his own, but, well, not really. He's only good for merging with Bass, giving him a jet pack.

But in all fairness, that's still a pretty darn neat trick. Much like Beat before him, Treble is not an independent character, but instead an additional trait that can be paid for and equipped to anyone. Want to give a character a bit more mobility and ranged Oomph? Treble Boost is yours for a mere 15 points. You get wings, you get extra bolts, and you get Deflection while he's active. Just be cautious about how you use it, because once your four is up, that's it. You're done. And unlike Beat, you don't get any passive boosts to rely on even if you've used all of your Boosts. So while you get more in the active use than you do from Beat, once you've used all those Boosts, Treble isn't doing anything for you anymore.

So who's the good dog now? Treble makes a strong case, but in the end, it's still Rush.

Whoa, I love that Treble. You did a great job balancing out what could've been an overpowered mechanic. Treble seems like a fun point risk.

It's fascinating that most of the animal companions aren't combatants. The only one I can think of is Tango.

Thanks! I'd long hoped that they'd include something offensive about Treble in any of the games, but he just doesn't ever have it. He strikes a menacing pose and a mechanical growl, but the flight armor trick with Bass is all he really has.

Tengu Man
Real Name: Tengu Man
Team: Robot Masters
Range: 4
Points: 50
Keywords: Robot, Robot Masters

10 11 17 3

10 10 17 3

9 10 16 2

9 9 16 2

8 9 16 2

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

Weak to Ice Wave: When Tengu Man takes damage from a Special Power called "Ice Wave", he takes one additional click of damage. "FREEZE" ignores the Robot Masters team ability, , and deals one click of unavoidable damage if it has no damage value.
It's Just a Kid? Don't Make Me Laugh!: At the beginning of your turn, roll a d6. On a result of 1-3, modify Tengu Man's attack value by -1.
Tornado Hold: AERO: Give Tengu Man a free action to place a Tornado Hold marker within three squares and line of fire, ignoring characters. Tengu Man may use Quake as if he occupied that square. Characters occupying Tornado Hold's square are also affected by Quake, but are not given Knockback. If a friendly character's movement would pass through Tornado Hold's square, it may use Improved Movement: Ignores Elevated Terrain for the remainder of the movement. Remove the Tornado Hold marker at the end of your turn.
Smack Down: When Tengu Man targets a character with or a character occupying Tornado Hold's square with a close attack, modify damage by +1.

If you were hoping for a continuation of the Mega Man 7 style, Mega Man 8 let you down. Not only did you not get another Mega Man on the Super Nintendo, but you had an entirely new visual and audio aesthetic on the Playstation and Sega Saturn. For the first time, Nintendo was out of luck with a Mega Man game.

These days, Mega Man 8 is most famous for its atrocious, and I mean atrocious voiceover work. Not a single line is delivered well, vocal cadences are awkward and stumbly, Dr. Light has a severe speech impediment that can only be described as "what if Elmer Fudd was recovering from a stroke?", Mega Man thinks Bass is named after a fish and not the clef, and it's just all kinds of bad everywhere.

However, the game itself still has all the charm you'd expect of a Mega Man game, changing a few things up to be fresh while still keeping the old formula intact. Mega Man still jumps, slides, shoots, charges his buster. Still defeats 8 robot masters, still steals their weapons, still exploits their weaknesses, still stops Dr. Wily. But this time, he's customizable by collecting bolts and using them to purchase permanent power ups. Also, this time, Rush can turn into a motorcycle (not sure how I'd add that in), Mega Man can swim, and he can rocket-snowboard (everyone who has played the game is now having horror flashbacks - JUMP! JUMP! SLIDE! SLIDE!). If you love Mega Man games, and you can get past some of the worst voice acting in history, then you'll enjoy Mega Man 8. It likely won't be your favorite game in the series, but it's worth the time.

Anyhoo - the first boss I always go up against is Tengu Man! He's weaker than most to the standard Mega Buster, which here translates into a short dial, he's one of the rare flying Robot Masters, and he has a crippling sense of arrogance, which is a fatal flaw for an early boss.

Tengu Man has some nasty tricks packed into a budget cost - he's fast, he's evasive, and has a strong focus on melee combat. He starts with Charge, hitting fairly hard for a 50 point figure, and transitions into a Hypersonic harasser in the middle.

But when his damage drops, he picks up a trick - he's got a tendency to smack airborne opponents into the ground, pumping up the damage of his melee hits if you can fly, or if you're in his Tornado Hold.

And that's his neatest trick. As a Free Action, Tengu Man can drop a Tornado Hold marker on the ground near him. From there, he can do a few things. Against enemies, Tornado Hold is a remote Quake, and as mentioned before, serves to pump his damage against characters occupying the square.

But it doesn't just damage enemies, it also helps his allies with mobility! If your movement takes you through a friendly Tornado Hold, you can Ignore Elevated Terrain for the rest of that move! This can help your friends Charge in on a rooftop sniper, or Running Shot to a rooftop vantage point, or just plain move up to a roof.

You'd better hope though that Tengu Man's ego doesn't get the better of him. He has a nasty habit of underestimating his foes, and that can translate to a drop in attack value.

Mega Man 8

I beat this one!

This is my least favorite of the main series. I can admit that its core mechanics are solid, but the sound design is powerfully grating. Doesn't help that most of the music is forgettable. I also dislike the swimming features -you called it- the [endless stream of swearing] snowboard levels. I also think that the improved graphics had some minor conflicts with the platforming, creating some indeterminate surfaces and edges.

That said, I like your Tengu Man. This is a snazzy representation of his tactics and abilities, and his Tornado hold offers some fantastic utility. Well done!

Yeah. 8 definitely ranks at the bottom for me. I only recently beat it for the first time with Legacy Collection 2, due solely to how non-responsive controls in the sledding sections were in the Anniversary Collection way back on the Playstation 2. It doesn't matter if you JUMP JUMP SLIDE SLIDE at the right time if the buttons won't properly respond to your input every single time.

The visuals did present problems sometimes, especially in Astro Man's stage where it wasn't always easy to tell where platforms actually ended. Luckily, they fixed that when they used the same engine and a lot of the same sprites for "Mega Man & Bass", which it still kinda irks me that that game is not in LC2. 7-10 only? Boo.

That said, "ranks at the bottom" for a Mega Man game is still pretty darn good overall in my book.

Thanks for the input! I feel pretty proud of the Tornado Hold translation. Now, the question remains how to differentiate Tengu Man 2 if/when I add Mega Man & Bass to the mix.

Clown Man
Real Name: Clown Man
Team: Robot Masters
Range: 0
Points: 60
Keywords: Robot, Robot Masters

8 10 18 3

8 10 17 3

7 10 16 2

7 9 16 2

7 9 16 2

6 8 16 2

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

Weak to Tornado Hold: When Clown Man takes damage from a Special Power called "Tornado Hold", he takes one additional click of damage. "AERO" ignores the Robot Masters team ability.
See You in My Dreams...: When Clown Man is KO'd, modify the attack value of all characters within four squares of where Clown Man was placed by -1 until the start of the next turn of the player who KOd Clown Man.
Thunder Claw: ELECTRIC: Exploit Weakness, Giant Reach 3. If Clown Man is within 3 squares of a square on the rim of elevated terrain, he may be placed in that square as a free action.
Thunder Carnival: Give Clown Man a Power Action to move him up to his full speed +1, ignoring characters for movement purposes. After the move is resolved, he may make a close attack at -1 to attack value targeting every opposing character he moved through.

Here's hoping you don't have Coulrophobia! The fact that Dr. Wily enlisted a creepy clown robot to do his evil bidding is not surprising. What's surprising is that it took him eight games to get to the creepy clown robot.

Clown Man is a nimble, mobile little freak who just loves to ruin your good mood with his shocking clown antics. Get it? Shocking? Electrical? Ha... ha ha... heh... ohhhhh.

Thunder Claw is a nasty melee attack with a reach, much like Knight Crusher. His electrical claw can reach out and shock right through defenses, or it can be used like a grappling hook to help him get to Elevated Terrain more easily.

His defenses are pretty solid, his damage kinda middling, his attack values okay, but his sheer attack potential is varied and clever. He can also steamroll through a crowd in mid-dial, though he does so at an attack penalty.

And if/when he gets KOd, he gives out one last creepy parting shot, creeping out every surviving character near him and weakening their attack value for a turn. This clown may not be The Joker, but he's got more than enough of his own tricks up his electrified sleeves!

Grenade Man
Real Name: Grenade Man
Team: Robot Masters
Range: 5
Points: 60
Keywords: Robot, Soldier, Robot Masters

7 10 17 3

7 10 17 3

7 9 17 3

6 9 17 2

6 9 16 2

6 8 16 2

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

Weak to Thunder Claw: When Grenade Man takes damage from a Special Power called "Thunder Claw", he takes one additional click of damage. "ELECTRIC" ignores the Robot Masters team ability, and deals one click of unavoidable damage if it has no damage value.
Oh Yeah! That Felt Good! : When Grenade Man takes damage from an attack, modify his attack value by +1 until the end of your next turn.
Flash Bomb: BURST: Grenade Man can use Energy Explosion. Modify the attack values of characters damaged by this attack by -1 until the beginning of your next turn.
Say Hello to My Cute Bombs!: If Grenade Man is the first character to attack this turn, modify his attack by +1.

With the inclusion of recorded dialogue, Mega Man 8 allowed Robot Masters to have more identifiable personality quirks than ever before. Tengu Man is haughty and arrogant, Clown Man is creepy, and now we have Grenade Man, who... is a sadomasochist. Seriously. You don't even have to rely on wikipedia to pick that up, because every time you hit him, he giggles, and when he dies, he tells you how good that felt. What was going on in the writer's room at Capcom is beyond me.

So let's put that in the dial! Grenade Man enjoys taking a hit, so when he does, he gets an attack boost. Further, he's not going to have any powers that could prevent him from taking a hit, so no Deflection, no Combat Reflexes, Super Senses, none of that. A little Toughness in the beginning, and Willpower for the bulk of his dial, but he's not about avoiding the hits, so if you want to keep him alive, you may want a medic on hand.

Flash Bomb is a pretty great weapon, managing to both hit a cluster and emit a bright flash, blinding enemies and weakening their attack values.

Towards the end of his dial, he's causing a lot of knockback, and his aggressive nature demands he make the first attack. If he's also taken some damage in the previous turn, this pumps his attack value up to dangerous levels for a late dial attack.

I want to punch Clown Man for reasons unrelated to your dial. He's the first robot master I approach in MM8, and I think he's also the most annoying. His Dial's great, though!

Double that for Grenade Man! I love how slick, simple, and effective it is. He'd be a blast to play!

EDIT: I blame MM8 for the pun.

Thanks! So many times in Mega Man 8, I just find myself wondering what the heck was everybody involved thinking. Why would they have one of the Robot Masters enjoy the pain you inflicted on him? Did they want you to feel a little icky fighting him? Where were the translators on this project? Or does all the dialogue feel just as awkward in the original Japanese? How could you on the one hand develop seriously cool and unique special weapons with such bizarre creative choices? What is "Evil Energy" and why has it never come up again?

Mega Man 8 is a mystery wrapped in an enigma wrapped in a WTF. Thank goodness for 9, 10, and hopefully 11!

Thanks for the input on the dials! I'm quite pleased with them myself. Especially the opportunity to include snippets of the truly awful dialogue in their Traits and Special Powers. That felt like a must.

So much of the dialogue comes from, I think, the jump in technical fidelity. With the PS1, suddenly you could without knowing if you should. Same reason why X7 is a nonstop barrage of filler dialogue and voice effects. Based on what's in MM8, I also think that it was conceptually understood and treated as a potboiler anime as opposed to the critical darlings that tended to be imported to America at that time.

Frost Man
Real Name: Frost Man
Team: Robot Masters
Range: 5
Points: 70
Keywords: Brute, Robot, Robot Masters

6 11 17 3

6 10 17 3

5 10 17 3

5 9 17 3

4 9 17 3

4 9 16 3

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

Weak to Flash Bomb: When Frost Man takes damage from a Special Power called "Flash Bomb", he takes one additional click of damage. "BURST" ignores the Robot Masters team ability.
I'll Crush You! I'll Make a Popsicle Of You!: Whenever Frost Man applies an action token but deals no damage to an opposing character, he may make a Close Attack as a free action targeting that character, but only if that character is within reach of his close attacks.
Ice Wave: Give Frost Man a Power Action. Make a ranged attack against all characters in a single line of fire, and give an action token to all characters successfully hit by this attack. Choose one character hit by this attack and deal it two clicks of penetrating damage.

Frost Man may be the single biggest Robot Master in the mainline series, dwarfing even heavy hitters like Guts Man and Stone Man. As such, he's earned his Giant status, towering over the battlefield like a massive humanoid igloo.

He's not fast, and can't Move and Attack, but his long stretch of Plasticity representing him freezing foes in place, and his full dial of heavy damage reducers alongside his Robot Masters team ability mean he'll be around for the long haul.

This plasticity can really help him combo Ice Wave with his secondary Trait. Ice Wave takes a straight line of fire and freezes every hit target in its wake, dealing two penetrating damage to one chosen target. It's better to choose a more distant target to take the pain, because he can choose one popsicle up close and crush it with a free action close attack after the fact. It'll be tricky to pull off, but with the right maneuvering, Frost Man can shut down enemy actions and cause a lot of pain in the process.

Just keep those bombs away from him, and he'll pull his considerable weight on your team.

Unique Duo
Real Name: Duo
Team: Police
Range: 6
Points: 135/70
Keywords: Cosmic, Police, Robot, Warrior, Light Labs

10 12 18 3

10 11 18 3

10 11 17 3

10 10 17 3

| | | |

9 10 17 3

9 10 16 3

9 9 16 3

8 9 16 2

8 9 16 2

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

Eliminate Evil Energy From This Universe : At the beginning of the game, your opponent chooses up to four characters and attaches Evil Energy Tokens to them. Characters with Evil Energy Tokens can choose one stat aside from Damage and modify it by +1 this game. Duo modifies his attack value by +1 against characters with Evil Energy Tokens. When a character with an Evil Energy Token takes a non-free action, its player rolls a d6. On a result of 1-2, that character takes one click of unavoidable damage.
I Feel a Strong Sense of Justice Within You (135): Duo can use Empower and Enhancement. He can use them normally, or he can use them on characters within four squares if they target opposing characters equipped with an Evil Energy Token.
Giga Tackle: Duo can use Charge. If his movement for Charge has any squares remaining after the attack resolves, he may move up to the remaining number of squares, placing the hit target of his Charge in an adjacent square and then applying Knockback.
Purge Corrupting Energies: Duo can use Support. Characters healed by Duo's Support modify attack and defense values by +1 until the beginning of your next turn.

Duo debuted in Mega Man: The Power Fighters 2, a very distinctly Mega Man co-op arcade fighting game as the fourth playable character after Mega Man, Proto Man, and Bass. If you had the Mega Man Anniversary Collection from the early 2000s, you may have played this game. Playing through as the melee powerhouse Duo gave you a promise that his full story would be unveiled in Mega Man 8, which it did, pretty much.

Duo crashed to Earth in pursuit of "Evil Energy", which Dr. Wily had recovered. He's a cosmic law enforcement robot whose sole purpose is to track down and destroy Evil Energy. That's what he does in Heroclix. When he is played, his opponent gets four Evil Energy Tokens to distribute as they will among their forces. Evil Energy grants a considerable boost to whoever its attached to, but at a cost. Not only will Duo himself be more effective against them, he'll also be able to help his teammates be more effective against them, AND the Evil Energy could slowly consume the ones using it.

Duo also brings the Police team ability, helping his allies hit their ranged marks more effectively, and can purge dark energies from and heal hurt allies.

But he's not all support capabilities, not at his cost. He's a flying melee monster, able to zoom in hard and hit harder, punching through defenses. He starts with a standard Charge before switching over to Giga Tackle, which can allow him to continue his Charge movement after making contact, sending hit targets flying. His defenses are strong, his speed is high, his attack values are nasty, and he's got several ways to bypass defenses on his opponents.

Duo has two point values not just for team-friendliness options, but also because when Mega Man squares off against him as the mid-game boss, Mega Man gets a distinct impression that Duo is holding back his true power.

You certainly don't want to be evil when Duo is around.