May the Power Protect You: Tommy Oliver (Turbo Red)

I'm honestly a bit surprised by Tommy's Turbo Red form. I was surprised, by not terribly excited, to see that Tommy's Turbo form was getting covered this early, but I mean, get it all out of the way, y'know? I'm certainly one of those who thinks that Tommy is overrated, but that's not the cookie crumbled. But even I think that Turbo was not a good way to send the character out. Turbo was a disappointing season, all told.

So why is this character so freaking awesome???

Explain yourself, Mr. Ying.

Because I want the rest of the Turbo team now! And that's not nice! Not at all! How dare you!!

OK, need to be an adult. Need to write.

Turbo Tommy (yup, I'm sticking with that) is an energy-obsessed dude. The entirety of his character is about energy flow. And offense. So much offense. There's literally no defensive cards in Turbo Tommy's kit. It's glorious. Just out and out offense, all the time, let's go! Shift Into Turbo, Turbo Tommy's character ability, allows you to toss in an extra energy for free, effectively. And that happens to square up with about half of Turbo Tommy's deck: Auto Blaster, Turbo Lightning Sword, and Full Throttle all are "X" costed, allowing you to ease up the energy being thrown at these three cards. Or, y'know, go all out and take advantage of that extra +1. Whatever you think the group can handle at that point. You do have folks in tow with you, after all.

Auto Blaster is Blade Blaster's bigger, more bad-ass, brother. Most of the characters I've covered up until this point had a Blade Blaster, so I didn't really think about talking about the card. Auto Blaster, on a strict blaster to blaster comparison, looks better, until you realize that it can only target one particular card, as opposed to any number of targets. Sure, it ignores GUARD, but Turbo Tommy is so freaking offensive that he has to be able to ignore GUARD for survival's sake! Yeah, I doubt you're doing a full Turbo team right now either, but in order for Turbo Tommy to hold his own he needs to have the ability to ignore GUARD when necessary. Which this lets you do. So that's good.

Full Throttle is probably my favorite card in the kit. You can play it on yourself, but I find I prefer playing it on another player's attack, preferably a grenade who can take that extra dice and make everyone hurt. And the thing is that you can chain it with other "grant extra cards" to not only build up a bit of energy beforehand but also make sure that the person at the end of that combo chain is just going to destroy anything that gets in their way. This card alone is enough to get me to play Turbo Tommy.

Ironically enough Turbo Lightning Sword didn't really get me as excited. It's a perfectly good card, granting you two attacks, which allows you to circumvent GUARD by killing that card before you throw in your second attack, but I always found myself not playing it in favor of someone else's power weapon. I don't know if others have run into that, but that's certainly been my experience. It's just not jumped out at me as much as other attacks. Time will tell, I suppose.

Alright, folks, let's get this out of the way: Turbo Strike, which grants you energy, does not trip off Slipstream Charge, which only activates when another ranger gains energy. So no, you have to wait for another ranger to be able to use that card. That being said, Turbo Strike can be really helpful, particularly when you get a 2 hit result. It's a good and solid attack with a nice boost to it that, for whatever reason, I find myself rolling 2 hits for. Why my luck can't be better when doing literally anything else I don't know, but there you have it.

Redline Slash doesn't get that extra die as much as I thought it would. I mean, that's probably because my group is really paranoid about energy flow and will gladly take hits to get something back in the tank, but it is really nice to fall back on Redline Slash when we couldn't afford to do anything else. And considering that there are times you really need that 3D attack but don't have the energy for it? It's a wonderful fallback.

Lightning Cruiser allows you to beat out FAST, at the cost of losing your last turn. I'd make the trade, particularly if it's a boss fight. I'm kinda scratching my head at who wouldn't, given how evil some FAST cards really are.

Play Turbo Tommy is a really thrilling time. With all the energy generation he does, the constant riding of that energy tank on empty, and his total lack of defense, you'd have to either be crazy or smart to play Turbo Tommy. Well, both is probably preferable. But if I'd have to pick one I'd say smart. Because smart playing of Turbo Tommy will yield some truly spectacular results.