Bangalore Legend Spotlight
The Apex Games draw the attention of a vast array of people across the known worlds, with some truly diverse personalities. Fighters, hunters, half-mad tricksters, rogues, or villains—you name it! There’s just no telling who will be the next in line to join the competition in search of fame, glory, and cold cash.
What you do not get a lot of is soldiers. A professional soldier usually does not care for money or fame. When they fight, they do so for much grander causes—a sense of duty, perhaps a set of ideals.
Soldiers simply do not fit in the Apex Games. But there are times when they are forced to participate. Bangalore is one such case.
As you complete the Map Drop stage of the game, you imagine the train of thoughts your character is going through as they are being deployed on the board. She’s not a warrior. She’s a soldier. You know the difference? A warrior fights for his own. He has no training, just talent. No discipline, just ferocity. No loyalty, just pride. She’s nothing like that. She’s not here to seek glory. She’s here to win and be able to get home to her family. She’s here for them. That’s why she’s going to win.
Bangalore’s been a perfect soldier her entire life. Given her thorough training and discipline, you could hardly find someone more suited for the challenges offered by the Games. She is adept at using artillery support and is known for distracting her enemies with the use of smoke. She knows the best ways to seek instant cover under fire, how to use medkits under severe pressure and how to shoot so that it really hurts.
So far the match can hardly be considered to be in your favor. But things are starting to look up, as you are able to lock your sights on the Legend who almost wiped you out a couple of rounds ago. As you position your character’s miniature directly in front of them, you imagine the satisfaction she is about to experience once she pulls the trigger. “Call me ‘sis’ again, and you’ll have to count how many bullets I have in this magazine—by counting the holes in your chest. Friend.”
As with the other Legends, we decided to focus on Bangalore’s iconic abilities when figuring out her design. We wanted her to use smoke to create cover and call artillery support for area control (with the potential boon of dealing damage to some of the more sluggish of her opponents). Her Ultimate ability is Rolling Thunder. It allows her to call for artillery support, covering part of the battlefield with a deadly barrage of fire. While there are other Legends who have a similar option at their disposal, Bangalore’s precision at coordinating these deep strikes so that they do not damage neither her allies nor herself, even if they are caught in the blast area, is unmatched. Moreover, her artillery strikes shift position over time, eventually covering multiple areas on the battlefield. With careful planning, Bangalore’s Ultimate can control and damage a large portion of the battlefield, providing her Squad the space and opportunity for sophisticated, deadly maneuvers.
You examine the board before you and see the enemy flanking your Squad. But as you look through your cards you get an idea. You urge your teammate to follow your lead and begin imagining what the exchange would be between the two of your characters. “It’s open terrain, bro! That’s suicide! A blind man won’t be able to miss me out there!,” her Squadmate says. But she remains cool and stern—so much so that he listens to her and they both run like hell. Seems that this is all part of her plan. The very next moment the enemy opens fire and gives up their positions, but mere seconds later there’s this thunderous sound closing in, and soon everything is covered in flames. And it seems to never end, as if she blew up some crazy fireworks factory. Her Squadmate is certain that he’s going to get hit, but the barrage is so precise that it doesn’t even scratch him. And once the dust settles he can clearly see her standing there, staring coldly onto the battlefield and talking to her comms. Ruthless. Efficient. That’s just how she is.
Bangalore’s Tactical Ability is called Smoke Launcher. Sounds simple, right? But in truth, what makes it a deeply tactical skill is the way it works and how and when it is used. The most obvious way is to deploy smoke screens to provide cover for Bangalore and her allies and make them more difficult to hit. But that’s not all. When in dire need, Bangalore can fire her smoke onto the enemies themselves.True—this makes them more difficult to see for her allies, but on the other hand it obscures their vision and aim, therefore significantly decreasing their combat efficiency. Smoke is Bangalore’s ally. She’s so skilled with using it that her Feat cards let her shoot through it without penalty, use it to hide more efficiently or instantly deploy it as a reaction to enemy attacks.
The player sitting at the other side of the table to you is no longer smiling. He should be glad that his Legend is still in the game. As he ponders his next move you can almost hear what’s going on in the head of his character. “I’m just 0.48 of a second away from taking her down. Within the next 0.11 seconds I squeeze the trigger to eliminate her. One moment she’s there, right in my sights, when the next one there’s a loud puff and then there’s only tons of thick, black smoke right where she was standing. And before I am able to process what’s going on, there’s rifle fire coming from the smoke. If it wasn’t for my energy shield I’d be de-assembled in an instant. How the hell does she do this…?”
Bangalore’s Tactical and Ultimate abilities are not the only tricks she’s got up her sleeve. Like every other playable character in Apex Legends: The Board Game, there are several Feat cards at her disposal, which serve to represent her unique skills.
Being a professional soldier, Bangalore’s skills focus on battlefield mobility, improved accuracy and avoiding incoming fire through the creative use of smoke screens. Bangalore can move and use healing items in one action, manipulate aim cards to be more efficient with her shots, cross obstacles like walls without paying additional movement points cost, and use smoke to effectively conceal herself from enemy fire. All of these Feat cards—even if seemingly simple at their core and with a strong bend towards militaristic practicality, if used at the appropriate moment, can turn the tide of battle in Bangalore’s favor and make her an efficient and formidable opponent.